


My Girlfriend is a Goddess?!

by LetheSomething



Series: Godbook [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Almost frustratingly slow burn, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Attempt at Humor, Comedy, F/M, Like really very slow burn, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Romance, Shenanigans, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, The Oikawa burns are real, Weird god au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-02-07 03:11:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 68,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12832077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetheSomething/pseuds/LetheSomething
Summary: Yamaguchi is overjoyed when he finally manages to get a date with the cute girl he's been crushing on for almost a year, even if she does have certain… quirks.Meanwhile, Yachi has come to realize that being a goddess isn't all it's cracked up to be. There's the terrible sleep schedule, the overbearing siblings, and the constant fear that this cute boy is going to think she's a freak. Also, it would be really nice if actual living shadows didn't try to inadvertedly sabotage her love-life, thankyouverymuch.A slow burn, slice of life type YamaYachi story with half the greek pantheon interfering in the love life of two people who already have enough nerves on their own.





	1. Romanticism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bittersweetoranges](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittersweetoranges/gifts).



Yachi Hitoka's alarm went off at 3.30 and she blearily swatted at it, before wiping a bit of drool from her face.   
"Urgh," she said to the room in general.  
Summer was hard. Much as she hated the cold, winter at least meant she could stay in bed longer.  
She grumpily shuffled her feet out of the covers, toes exploring the floor.  
Once she'd ascertained that yes, she was awake, and yes, the floor was real and a little fuzzy and also chilly, she sat up.  
Her head protested by thumping loudly.  
"Uuurrgghh," she whined.  
Static stuck her hair to her face. She blew it away and rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her night dress.  
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she was acutely aware of the fact that she shouldn't have stayed up as long as she did. It couldn't be helped, she supposed. Her research had been going so well, and she finally thought she'd made a breakthrough.  
It was like the pattern was there, she could almost see it, but not quite.  
Like a word stuck at the tip of her tongue.

With a sigh, she dragged herself up, wobbling a little on her way to the bathroom.   
She came out ten minutes later, hair damp and brain almost functioning. She brushed her teeth while drifting around the room, picking out clothes, tidying up after last night's dinner and finally stopping before her desk.  
Papers filled with rows and rows of numbers lay on the wooden surface.  
She squinted at them.  
Minuscule differences, measurements in size and growth, down to a cellular level, between specimens of Lonicera japonica taken from a tiny island in the middle of the Suo-Nada sea, and specimens of the same honeysuckle species pulled from the concrete on a side-walk in Kyoto.  
The general idea was to figure out if the species had evolved to adapt to city life, or if it had always been able to grow anywhere.  
The problem was that she still hadn't been able to find the right lab circumstances in which to fully test her theory. She should really get cracking on that.  
The eventual peer review and the probably Very Stern gaze of her Botany professor was giving her nightmares and she was already getting little sleep as it was.  
She was never going to make it, she thought, and everyone was going to be super disappointed.  
Shaking her head to clear her fears away, she gathered the papers into a folder and shoved them in her backpack, before returning to the bathroom sink to finally spit out her toothpaste.  
A quick phone check revealed that she had 50 minutes till sunrise.

With forty minutes till sunrise left, Yachi climbed onto her bike and pedalled through the quiet streets on the outskirts of Kyoto, a lone beam of light moving between sleepy houses.   
She arrived at the shrine in the foothills ten minutes later.  
The place was small, out of the way and not well known. It was only really visited by some of the locals, which suited her purposes just fine.  
She parked her bike and lugged her backpack all the way up the steps.

Half an hour past sunrise, Yachi came back down the steps, huffing and a little sweaty.   
She reached her bike and checked the clock. Still almost an hour until the café even opened.  
The thought of the diner, with its warm light, the smell of fresh baked bread and a certain freckled smile made her feel a little bit more relaxed. Maybe she could get some actual work done, she thought, take another shower, too, before breakfast.  
Putting on the backpack again, she jumped onto the bike and pedalled back to her apartment, humming softly to herself.

 

* * *

 

Bacon sizzled pleasantly on the large griddle, soft crackles and the smell of rich meat filling the kitchen where Yamaguchi Tadashi stood.   
He hummed a little to himself while he flipped the strips of bacon. Then he turned around and popped two pieces of bread into the toaster. He slid to the fridge, grabbing a packet of butter and one of jam, and dropped them neatly on a plate.  
With the bacon nearly done, he took one egg and cracked it on the griddle.  
There was a song stuck in his head. Some tune that Tsukki had made him listen to three days ago, that was still hanging around.  
He wasn't entirely sure if it was annoying or fun.  
The toast popped out with a small ding and he grabbed the pieces, assembling them on the plate with the bacon and, finally, the egg.  
He gave his creation a quizzical look before nodding, deeming it satisfactory.  
"One breakfast special, ready!" he said, putting the plate onto the serving hatch.  
Tsukki's bored looking face came into view, and he nodded.  
"Here you go Fukuzawa-san," Yamaguchi heard him say, before his oven started beeping and he rushed to take out his scones.

The place that currently employed the both of them was called Sam's Café and it was probably not the only American style diner in Kyoto.   
It did, however, feel suitably authentic to Yamaguchi's inexperienced eye.  
It had the whole deal: chequered tile floors, booths with red pleather seats and a jukebox that Tsukki had sabotaged because someone kept putting in requests for Tom Jones songs.  
How they managed to get employed here, was still a mystery to Yamaguchi.  
Neither he nor Tsukki was, at first sight, made for customer service.  
He'd always been a nervous wreck and the whole point of a short order cook, so he'd come to believe, was to be resistant to stress.  
Tsukki, on the other hand, had little patience for people and his smile was always this side of sneering. He didn't do grovelling and most of the time he didn't even do friendly.  
So when they started here, Yamaguchi had taken up the job of waiter, and Tsukki was the cook.  
And that whole deal went to utter hell really fast.  
The next day they had switched, and somehow it worked.  
Maybe Yamaguchi had awakened some latent talent for cooking.  
Maybe it was because most of the customers were here for a no-fuss meal where they didn't need to interact with overly friendly wait staff.  
Or maybe it was because Tsukki, no matter what he did, would always be cool.  
What was certain, was that their boss didn't care who did what. He didn't even show up before noon, when the second shift began.  
As long as people got their food and paid their tab, all was well.  
This meant, among other things, that Tsukki didn't have to do friendly unless a customer was particularly prickly, and that the menu was whatever Yamaguchi felt like making.

"The usual, Yachi-san?"  
Yamaguchi's ears pricked up at Tsukki 's bored-but-with-a-smirk-hiding-in-there tone.  
"Yes, please, Tsukishima-san," a soft voice replied. "Oh and a large coffee to go. Did Yamaguchi-san make croissants today?"  
"Today's special is cherry scones," Tsukki said.  
"Oh! I'll have one of those too."  
There was a shuffle and the loud whir of the coffee machine.  
"Here you go."  
Yamaguchi heard a muffled thank you, and then Tsukki stepped into the kitchen.  
"Two eggs over-easy," he said in a monotone. "on steamed rice, with grilled tomato on the side. For Yachi-san. As always."  
He picked up a paper bag and grabbed a scone from a baking plate, placing it on a tray with a napkin.  
"I'm going to take my break now."  
"Wh- now?"  
"Yeah, can you bring it to her?" He glanced at Yamaguchi, face impassive if it weren't for the tiny, possibly malicious sparkle in his eye. "I'm sure she won't mind."  
And before Yamaguchi could protest, he'd stepped out the back door.

Yamaguchi nervously arranged the egg on top of the rice and placed it on the serving tray.   
"Ok," he muttered to himself. "Alright."  
He threw a quick glance at his face in the aluminum hood over the oven. He looked greasy and tired.  
Great. Just great.  
Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the tray and stepped into the diner  
He found Yachi hunched over her usual table, head buried in her arms.  
Oh no.  
"A- are you all right, Yachi-san?"  
He gently put the tray next to her giant latte cup.  
Holy crap was she crying? What the hell was he going to do if she was crying? How did you comfort a girl? Did her boyfriend yell at her? Why would he immediately think of that? Did she even have a boyfriend? Was Yamaguchi going to beat someone up? Was he... going to have Tsukki beat someone up?  
"Are you hurt?" he tried, mild panic rushing through his brain.  
It was then that he noticed the soft snore.  
Behind him, Fukuzawa finished his meal and hopped off the bar stool.  
The old man chuckled and waved. "Better wake her up, she probably needs to go somewhere if she's drinking that much coffee."  
He was right, of course, Yamaguchi thought. Yachi probably had places to be, food to eat.  
If Tsukki was here, he'd have already handled the situation.  
Yamaguchi swallowed and gingerly reached out.  
"Yachi-san?"  
His fingers connected with her arm, the fabric soft to the touch.  
"Uh, Yachi-san?"  
He pushed down, skin giving just a little.  
Supple, his brain told him, without prompt.  
Oh god was he going to have to shake her? What if he hurt her?  
"Yachi-san!"  
The girl startled and blinked up. Her eyes were puffy and a napkin clung to her face.  
Ohgodshewassocute.  
"Yamaguchi-san? What?"  
"Are you all right?" he said. "You, uh, kinda fell asleep."  
"Oh gods I'm so sorry! What time is it?"  
"Seven thirty. You have time to eat," he smiled, and her wide eyes went soft as she viewed the tray before her.  
"I'm really sorry," she said, picking up her chopsticks. "I didn't mean to trouble you, Yamaguchi-san."  
"Oh, it's nothing, it's nothing," he said, watching awestruck as she started scarfing down the food.  
"I'd be more concerned about you. You must be really tired."  
She swallowed a bit of rice and chased it with coffee.  
"I've been working a lot," she said.

It was, of course, Tsukki who had first noticed. How the amount of food this girl ate was completely not in proportion to her size. Maybe if she was a pro athlete or something, but from what he had heard, she was an undergrad.  
Tsukki had been rather rude about it, Yamaguchi thought, but he did have a point: where did she manage to put all that? Yachi-san was tiny.  
And cute.  
Yamaguchi shook his head.  
Come on, he could do this, he told himself, while the girl before him finished her egg.  
There was no one else here. It was now or never.

"So Yachi-san," he started, fighting a blush.   
She looked up from her latte.  
"You know how you were saying you really liked uh, Romanticism and, uh, art."  
"Oh yes!" she said. "You remember that?"  
He smiled to himself. Of course he had remembered that. It was one of the few titbits of information he had to build something in common.  
“Well I was reminded of it, uh, this week. You know, uh, Fujishima Takeji?”  
“Of course!” she nodded enthusiastically. “He's really interesting. The way he uses colour! And how he blends western techniques with traditional Japanese influences. He's really good.”  
She picked up another bite of rice and Yamaguchi rubbed the back of his neck.  
“So I heard he has an exhibition in town,” he said and she glanced at him, mouth full of rice.  
His chest was gonna burst.  
“At the National Museum of Modern Art,” he managed.  
She nodded.  
"And I was wondering-"

The bell tinkled and a customer flew in like a panicked pigeon that had taken a wrong turn.  
"Coffee! Large! Black!" he yelled, slamming his hand on the counter.  
Yamaguchi very nearly groaned, as Yachi blinked at the new man, utterly distracted.  
"Oy! Can I get some service around here or what?"  
"Just a moment," Yamaguchi said, and he slunk behind the counter.  
"One large coffee?" he asked the now irate man. "That'll be 200 yen, please."  
By the time he was done serving the customer with the worst timing in the whole world, and the next one that immediately walked in, and the _next one,_ Yamaguchi saw with sinking heart that Yachi was packing up. She quickly shoved the scone into her backpack and slung it on, grabbing her latte.  
"Back to work?" he asked, trying his hardest not to sound super disappointed.  
She nodded. "If I'm late my professor will _kill_ me; I'm so sorry, you were in the middle of saying something, too. What was it you wanted to ask? "  
"Oh... Nothing. It's nothing." He looked down at his greasy hands resting on the counter. "See you again tomorrow?"  
She nodded happily and walked off.

With the place now empty, Yamaguchi stepped back into his kitchen and sank onto one of the chairs.   
When Tsukki came in a few minutes later, he raised an eyebrow at him.  
"I was so close," Yamaguchi whined. "I was just about to ask her."  
His friend seemed unimpressed with this progress, leaning against the doorway with his arms folded. "So what happened?"  
"Nakahara-san happened," Yamaguchi groaned.  
"Oh."  
Tsukki wordlessly patted his friend on the shoulder, before he got back into the diner to make himself some coffee.

 

* * *

 

«And then he said 'It's nothing'. But he did say 'See you tomorrow' and now I don't know what to think.»  
Yachi Hitoka plopped onto her bed and pouted into her cup ramen, before blowing on it.  
« Yachi. He was obviously about to ask you out, » came the voice of Kuroo through her laptop.  
On the screen was a video chat group with four window tiles. Kuroo's black head of hair was poking out of a corner of one of them.  
« Yeah, he's just as much of a bundle of nerves as you are. Honestly, from what I can make out, the both of you are terrible. You deserve each other, » Oikawa added. He was lying on a bed in a plush looking room, thumbing through his phone.  
« You don't know that! » Yachi whined.   
« Tell you what, Ya-chan, » Oikawa mused, and he looked up at the camera with a charming, mischievous smile. « Why don't you take charge? Make the first move. Knock his socks off. »   
« Eh? I don't want to hurt anyone! »   
« Figure of speech, darling, » Oikawa said, not even looking up from his phone.  
« He means, » Kuroo added helpfully, « what if _you_ just ask _him_ out. »   
« But what if I'm wrong? » she pointed out. « What if he turns me down and scoffs at me and laughs at my feeble attempts at conversation? I'll never be able to show my face in this town again! Where am I going to get breakfast? What about coffee? I will die without coffee, Kuroo-san! »   
« This isn't the only coffee place in Kyoto, Yachi, » Kuroo's voice soothed.   
She whimpered. « And even if we did go out, it could never work. He's a good man. He's normal. What will I tell him? He'll think I'm a freak! And then he'll dump me and I'll end up an old maid who can't show her face in Kyoto again and I'll die alone and without coffee. »   
She huffed and chowed down on slightly-too-hot ramen.  
« All right, all right, » Kuroo said again, leaning into the frame. He was wearing glasses and had a pen between his teeth. « No need to start panicking about that now. You haven't even managed to go out with him yet. That's usually step one in this process. »   
« How does Oikawa-san even do this? » she mumbled between slurps.   
« Love them and leave them, mostly, » Oikawa said, looking up from his phone. « You don't have to tell them anything, not for a few dates surely. People love mystery. None of my lovers knew, except like the one but he was special. »   
« You should ask Kuroo, anyway. Oikawa is hardly a shining example, » came Sugawara's voice. His thumbnail was black and there was stumbling in the background when he spoke.  
« Oy, don't drag my love life into this, » Kuroo said. « And didn't you have to work? What are you doing in here? »   
« Being a supportive brother, » Sugawara noted. « And I'm on my break. My colleagues are all arguing over some friggin soap opera drama I don't care about and believe it or not, you guys are actually better company right now. »  
«I'm touched, Suga,» Kuroo said.   
Oikawa was frowning. « So enlighten us, Tetsu. What did he say? The hubby, I mean. He knows, right? How did he react? »   
« Calm. The same way Yuki reacts to everything. He is beautiful and smart and the chillest person in the world. » Kuroo winked at someone outside the frame.  
« He nodded and said 'I understand', » he went on. « And then we agreed that he doesn't ask questions and I don't tell him things that could cause an existential crisis for an experimental physicist. »   
« See Ya-chan? » Oikawa said. « It's perfectly possible to have your happy ending, as long as your boyfriend is literally Budha. »   
« He's not, » Kuroo protested.  
« Well what if he isn't? » Yachi moped. « Calm, I mean. Yamaguchi-san. »   
« The only ex I ever told just screamed at me, » the voice of Sugawara mused. « Tried to have me put in forced therapy, too. That was disappointing. »   
Yachi gasped and Oikawa rolled his eyes. «Yes, very supportive of you there, 'big brother',» he said.


	2. Young Gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yamaguchi is brave.

It was 3.30 in the morning, when an unholy beeping sound pierced the silence of Yachi Hitoka's room.  
"Uuuuurggghhhh."  
She swatted at her alarm, probably hitting the device with more force than strictly necessary, and rolled onto her back, blinking at the ceiling.  
Images of last night's dreams were still flitting across her vision. Oikawa was there, only he kept disappearing. Literally. Like he would become transparent and the only thing left would be his toothy smile. It was very disturbing.  
And then she walked into a restaurant that was also a moving bus, to meet Kuroo and Kai who were international spy diplomats in matching pink tailored suits and the food was delivered by Yamaguchi in a bunny outfit.  
And then Kuroo made her go and talk to him, before fusing with Kai like some kind of Voltron. They took off to go fight crime or mutated monsters or something together, Yachi couldn't remember.  
But she did remember walking into the kitchen to talk to Yamaguchi, only to find him surrounded by bunny girls who were waving palm leaves at him and feeding him grapes and he looked at her with a sneer.  
"Pathetic," he said, in a voice that sounded way more deadpan than she was used to, and then she woke up.  
Yachi sighed at the ceiling.  
Much as she loved her brothers, what good was it to have a bunch of overprotective international siblings if they only made you stress out more?  
She was never going to be as calm and collected as Kuroo. Never.  
And she would also not become as dismissive as Oikawa. Not in a million years. She just couldn't. Her heart was already hurting at the mere thought of Yamaguchi pouting.  
She rolled her head to look at the clock.  
3:45  
"Oh gods!"  
With a jolt, she shot out of bed and ran into the bathroom.

Yachi arrived at the shrine with twenty minutes left before sunrise.   
Slightly out of breath, she got off her bike and stood for a moment, resting her hands on her knees while.  
"Alright," she said to herself, and she grabbed her backpack, taking it with her as she climbed the steps. When she arrived at the top, she opened it up and pulled out a novelty foldable broom. She used it as a brush to draw a simple circle around her. Particles of dust and sand moved out of the way for just a moment to form a perfect circle that maybe, just maybe, lit up dimly and then vanished again as the wind picked up.  
The sky in the east was growing pale, the first fingers of dawn rising from the horizon, and Yachi stood on a stone platform overlooking the city, holding her broom like a battle staff.  
Slowly, shadows started swirling around her. They crept out of the tiles, they climbed up the steps and oozed across the ground, occasionally lashing at her feet. They gathered, dropping out of the trees, emerging from beneath the walls and trickling off the top of the Shoji gate, until there was a mass of them, thick enough to form an opaque wall. They whispered non-stop, in a language she still, after all these years, did not understand.  
Yachi took a deep breath, and she started sweeping.

 

* * *

 

"So Nakahara-san came early today," Tsukki said, leaning his elbows on the hatch to the kitchen.  
"Oh?" Yamaguchi Tadashi was busy flipping pancakes, while trying to keep an eye on his oven.  
He appreciated it. Really, he did.  
Tsukki was being helpful, which was, in itself, an honour not given to many people. But he was highly overestimating Yamaguchi if he thought he'd put himself out there for another try so soon.  
His nerves were a wreck today, and if he had to face the prospect of another failed attempt, he'd rather just sink through the floor and become some kind of underground mole person.  
A small ding took him out of his gloom and he whizzed over to the oven to take out today's pastry special.  
Chocolate croissants.  
Yachi loved those, he thought with a slight pang.  
Maybe he should try again. The exhibit only ran for another week or so and then he' d have to find some other unlikely hook to catch her attention with.  
"Good morning, Tsukishima-san!"  
A familiar voice drifted from the diner and Yamaguchi's ears perked up.  
She sounded like the first day of spring and dear god what was he going to do?  
"Hello Yachi-san," Tsukki greeted. "The usual?"  
"Yes please!"  
The coffee machine whirred  
"What's today's special, Tsukishima-san?" the voice of Yachi-san asked.  
"Chocolate filled croissants."  
"Oh! I love those!"  
Yamaguchi smiled sadly and took a deep breath. Maybe he should try again.  
He exhaling slowly and then sniffed when something burnt crept into his nose, tickling it unpleasantly.  
Pancakes!  
He flipped the poor ruined things off the grill just as they started smoking and propped open a window, hopefully in time to stop the fire alarm from going off.  
Turning around, he found the small kitchen floor now strewn with very dark pancakes.  
With a sigh, he grabbed the bin and went to pick them up.  
"Ow, ow, stop being so hot you little-"  
"Yamaguchi? What are you doing?"  
He looked up to see Tsukki leaning against the doorway, arms folded.  
"I burnt the pancakes," Yamaguchi pouted.  
"Oh."  
He got back up, put the bin away and went to wash his hands, shoulders sagging.  
"I'm a mess."  
"I can see that," Tsukki snorted.  
Yamaguchi stuck his lip out at him.  
"I'll tell the customer his order is going to be late. Meanwhile, two eggs over-easy, on steamed rice, with grilled tomato on the side. For Yachi-san."  
Yamaguchi nodded. "Tsukki ?"  
"Hmmm?"  
"Please don't take your break now."  
His friend shrugged, putting two croissants in a paper bag before heading back into the diner.

"Focus," Yamaguchi told himself as he spooned four new pancakes on to the griddle.  
"Focus." As he stacked rice into a bowl and put half a tomato under the grill.  
"You can do this," he muttered, flipping pancakes and cracking two eggs.  
He was good at this, he thought. The cooking thing, at least.  
He slid over to the fridge and placed a packet of syrup and one with raspberry jam onto a plate, before stacking the pancakes next to them.  
"One order for pancakes!" he shouted at Tsukki.  
Practice. Practice makes perfect. He'd done this once before, and had survived.  
It didn't go entirely as planned, but he hadn't fully scared her off either.  
She had seemed enthusiastic, even.  
He could do this.  
He checked the eggs, putting salt, pepper and just a pinch of paprika on top. Then he pulled the tomato out of the grill.  
"Just bring up the exhibit again. She'll remember," he muttered to himself. "And then just friggin... ask her. You idiot."  
He flipped the eggs, letting them fry just long enough so they wouldn't break as he carefully spooned them on top of the rice.  
"Right," Yamaguchi said and he placed the plate onto a waiting tray.  
Squaring his shoulders, he took a deep breath and picked it up, walking into the diner.  
"Yachi-san?"  
The girl looked up from where she was munching on chocolate croissant. A small flake of pastry still clung to her lips as she blinked at him.  
Like flecks of gold adorning a statue.  
Yamaguchi felt himself waver, and he was fairly certain he could _feel_ Tsukki giving him a mildly horrified look from behind the counter.   
He was never going to live this down. Especially not if he fell here.  
"Yachi-san!" he said, putting the tray on the table with slightly too much force. "About that exhibit!"

 

* * *

 

« Oh my gods I'm going to die. »   
Yachi Hitoka flopped onto her bed, arms wide, and stared at the ceiling.  
« Dare I ask what happened? » Sugawara said. He raised an eyebrow at the camera. From his tile on the chat program, Yachi could see that he was sitting on his couch with a bowl of popcorn in his lap. He was wearing pyjamas, flannel with a colourful shrimp pattern on them, and apparently watching some tv show.   
« Yamaguchi-san asked me out, » Yachi said.  
« Oh finally! » Oikawa's voice shouted.  « I was wondering if I would have to lock you two up in an elevator or something. Maybe send you on a fake honeymoon so you'd have to pretend to be married. » His tile was black, but when he spoke, you could hear the sound of waves.  
« I mean, assuming it is an actual date, » Yachi wavered.  « We never specified if this is a proper date or if we're just going together to this- »   
« It’ll be fine! » Oikawa's voice sounded utterly pumped.  « You're finally getting laid! Bring condoms, Ya-chan! »   
« Wh-what? » Yachi muttered, horrified.   
Surely that wasn't something she had to worry about, yet.  
Right?  
« Yeah, be safe kids. » The black mane of hair poking out of the corner of Kuroo's tile rustled.   
Suga rolled his eyes.  
« I wasn't planning to... Oh my gods is he going to expect me- »   
« He's not, » Suga said, sighing.  « Just how long has it been since you last dated anyone, Yachi? That's not first date material unless you're Oikawa. So don't worry. Yamaguchi-san sounds like a perfectly nice boy who is going to be a perfectly behaved gentleman. »   
« And if he doesn't, he's going to get punched! » said the entirely too cheerful voice of Kuroo.  
« Please don't punch Yamaguchi-san... »   
« So, » Suga said, peering at her through his screen,  « where is he taking you? »   
« An art exhibit. »   
« Nice, » three different voices said, one interspersed with the screech of a seagull.  
«Tooru , where the hell are you this time? » Kuroo asked.  
« Beach, » Oikawa's reply came.   
« We can kinda tell, numb nut. »   
« And I'm gonna have to drop off, because I'm about to head in and work. It takes a lot of energy and focus to be the life of a party. Especially one that plays lounge music. »   
He made a choking sound, and a droning beat could be heard in the background, slowly getting louder.  
« Honestly, who does lounge parties on a beach? » Oikawa ranted on.  « What did they even invent Ibiza style music  _for_ ? »   
« Terrible, » Kuroo deadpanned.  « How  _do_ you survive. »   
« Anyway, good luck Ya-chan! Don’t forget condoms! Love you! »   
Oikawa's line went dead.  
« You know, I love him, » Suga said, pulling a fleece over his shoulders,  « but I really want to punch that guy sometimes. » He grumpily shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth.  
« So. » Kuroo's head, and his signature half smile, popped into view.  « Have you decided what you're gonna wear yet? »

 


	3. The painter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a date.

Yachi Hitoka was wide awake at 3:29, staring at her clock and waiting for it to go off.   
She was going on a date today, like a proper grown up person, and she was not going to worry about any of the consequences, just as Suga had told her.  
She would just go out and have a good time. No pressure, just be yourself. All that.  
Poor Suga had spent the better part of the last three days giving her motivational speeches, or so it seemed.  
She could do this. She wasn't about to let him down.  
When her alarm started beeping, she jumped out of bed, whacking the clock on the way to the bathroom.

She was making great time today, parking her bike at the bottom of the shrine steps with twenty five minutes left till sunrise. Feeling rather pleased with herself, she almost skipped up the stone staircase until she reached the top, and that's where the whole thing came crashing down.   
There was someone here.  
This had not been in the plan.  
She knew she couldn't really tell people where to go and what to do, but this had never happened before.  
No one came here. Certainly not this early. That was kind of the whole point?  
But here she was, minutes till sunrise, facing a strange man sitting on one of the stone benches at the edge of the platform overlooking the city.  
"Um, excuse me?" Yachi said, voice squeaky with a mixture of fear and indignation. "What are you doing here? Sir?"  
The man turned around. Two piercing blue eyes sized her up. "Waiting for sunrise. Are you a shrine maiden?"  
"Me? Uh, n-no."  
"Oh."  
He knit his eyebrows together, blinked, and then went back to whatever he was doing, which involved some kind of book.  
In the distance, the sky was growing lighter.  
"Could you, uh, go? Somewhere else?" Yachi tried.  
The man blinked again and stood up.  
Oh gods he was tall. Like at least Yamaguchi-sized. Almost Tsukishima-sized.  
Huge.  
Yachi started trembling.  
"I didn't know this was private property," he said, frowning. "I'm sorry."  
"Oh, it, uh, isn't," Yachi admitted.  
"Ok then." He sat back down and Yachi chest fell.  
"It's just that I have some things to do and they're important and, um."  
"'I promise I won't bother you," he said, opening his notebook.  
In the east, the sky was turning from midnight blue to cobalt.  
Yachi looked around, worrying her lip.  
The shadows were starting to wriggle. She couldn't stay here.  
Maybe she could head into the shrine proper, but that would really be trespassing, wouldn't it? The mean looking man was no longer paying attention to her, but he was going to be in danger if she hung around here.  
Hurrying, she walked down the steps a bit. “It doesn't matter where you go, as long as you have some light and some privacy,” Suga had told her.  
So she headed off into the woods on the side of the hill.  
Oh dear gods it was creepy in here. She really hoped there weren't any robbers or rapists or....  
Stopping that train of thought, she took off her backpack and pulled out her broom. This, at least, made her feel a little bit safer.  
She carefully picked her way between the trees until she found a nice clearing.  
Quickly, she drew a circle in the sand, broom sweeping in long, soft strokes.  
The sky in the east turned cerulean and the shadows started to move toward her.

Ten minutes past sunrise, Yachi came back out of the forest.   
She was tired. So tired. She was certain that the shadows were getting stronger, though that could also be because of the location. There were leaves in her hair and scratches on her arms, and she was fairly sure some icky bug had bitten her in the leg.  
When she got to the staircase, she paused to pat some of the dust and debris off her.  
"Oh, hello again," the strange man said, coming back down the stairs.  
Yachi waved vaguely at him and he tilted his head at her.  
"You know, you're very beautiful," he said.  
"Thank you?"  
"You'd make a good subject."  
"Wh-what?" She backed away, shaking her head. "No! Nononono. Whatever, it is uh… thank you for the offer? But no."  
He frowned. "Wait, that came out wrong… how do I say this. I want to capture you."  
"Yeek!"  
Yachi turned around and started running down the stairs.  
"Wait!" the boy shouted.  
Oh dear gods what was he planning to do to her? Put her in a cage? Maybe some kind of living doll? Every possible horror trope sprang to life in her head at once.  
"I… I have to go now," she yelled behind her, "Sorry!"  
She sprinted towards her bike and sped off, never looking back and never slowing down until she reached her apartment building.

 

* * *

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi stood in front of the Museum of Modern art and drummed his fingers on his leg.  
It was a nice day, trees next to him rustling in a soft breeze, water in the nearby canal glittering in the sun.  
He checked his phone. Fifteen minutes till four. Sneakily, he tried to glance at his reflection in the thumbed-up screen.  
He looked fine. It was probably fine. Even Tsukki had said as much.  
Or really, he'd asked Tsukki if he looked ok, and his friend had rolled his eyes, which probably meant it was fine. Tsukki would have said something if he'd had spinach in his teeth or whatever.  
So he stood under the trees and looked at the canal and drummed his fingers to the beat of a song he'd gotten stuck in his head for days now.

 

Yachi Hitoka got off the bus and hurried toward where they had agreed to meet, cursing her little legs.   
It had been an altogether harrowing day. First there was that strange man, then the shadows had been extra difficult, and when she'd finally gotten herself somewhat back together again, it was too late to go have breakfast at the diner so she had been reduced to grabbing a convenience store rice ball (which really didn't fill her up) on the way to the university. And _then_ her professor had fallen ill and it had somehow become her responsibility to deal with all his social appointments and student questions and now she was utterly, utterly drained.  
And late. That too. Late, and running, and Yamaguchi was going to take one look at her sweaty, useless self and he'd cancel the date then and there.  
Suga’s voice piped up in her head, reminding her to relax.  
“People go on dates every day and they somehow survive, so you should probably be ok too,” he’d said.  
Suga had forgotten the part where people do things every day that Yachi would never be able to do.  
Like jumping out of air planes. Or running into burning buildings to save infants.  
She finally passed the library and picked up speed, towards the boy waiting for her under the trees.

 

"Yamaguchi-san!"   
A familiar if slightly out-of-breath sounding voice called out to Yamagushi Tadashi and he looked up, smiling.  
Yachi was running toward him and for a moment there, he was certain she was going to trip, but she miraculously didn’t. Huffing, she came up to him and bent over, catching her breath.  
Dear god she was cute, Yamaguchi thought. Her cheeks flushed, small beads of perspiration on her brow. She positively glowed.  
“Yamaguchi-san, I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said. “There was some trouble at the university and then the bus got stuck in traffic and…” She stopped, breathing deeply.  
“It’s ten to four, Yachi-san,” Yamaguchi grinned. “You’re right on time.”  
“Oh.”  
She gave him a relieved little smile, and Yamaguchi could almost feel his heart melt.  
“Would you like to sit down for a minute? Maybe get a drink?”  
She shook her head. “Nono, let’s go in before they close. You really wanted to see this exhibit, didn’t you?”  
“Mmm.”

From what Yamaguchi’s roommate had told him, Fujishima Takeji was a late 19th, early 20th century artist who had gone to the West to study painting. He’d brought several techniques home with him, introducing them to the Japanese art scene, whatever that looked like back then.  
Impressionism. That one.  
Yamaguchi mentioned this to his date as they walked through room after room of blank white walls and shiny floors, occasionally interspersed with a painting. He found himself grinning when she nodded enthusiastically.  
“They say he apprenticed with some of the early twentieth century French and Italian masters,” Yachi said. “I wonder what that was like. Do you think he spoke French? That must be so difficult to learn.”  
“Good point,” Yamaguchi noted. “And he’d have to learn all kinds of new things, like eating with knife and fork and like… bread. They didn’t have rice balls in Paris back then.”  
“Wow. I wonder how you say bread in French.”  
“ _Pain_ ,” Yamaguchi knew, with a tinge of pride. “Like _pain au chocolat_.”  
Yachi’s eyes lit up in admiration and he was secretly very pleased that his desperate gig as a short order cook had at least given him _something_ to impress dates with.   
“Though if you can draw that well, it’s probably not hard to order things like bread,” he added thoughtfully.  
“Oh yes he could just make a picture! The universal language of art!” Yachi exclaimed, and he nodded.

They walked on, admiring the landscapes, while Yachi pondered what the sunrise would look like in Paris, coming up over the Seine.  
It wasn't too busy here, but occasionally a large tour group would come up behind them, crowding in. Yachi walked closer, the back of their hands just brushing each other. It sent all kinds of electricity up Yamaguchi’s arm.  
Should he try to hold her hand? Or was that too forward?  
His face heating up, he decided that maybe he’d just sort of be there and let her choose.  
But if Yachi was even aware of what was happening, she didn't let it on. She seemed perfectly happy to stare in awe at the pictures around them.  
To distract himself and hopefully get his facial colour back to normal, Yamaguchi decided to join her, looking at the paintings with renewed vigor.  
Now that he was here, it did seem like Fujishima had painted a lot of sunrises and sunsets.  
Yamaguchi appreciated this. He’d always liked the sunrise. There was something pure about it. Rosy fingers lining up the sky.  
Sunsets were nice, of course, in their multicoloured splendour. Pinks and oranges and reds splashing across the sky. There was a reason people went out of their way to watch them and painted and photographed hundreds of pictures of them.  
But Yamaguchi had always like sunrises better.  
A sunset was the start of night. It brought darkness and maybe, just maybe, Yamaguchi had spent most of his childhood being afraid of the dark. He never liked the shadows creeping across the floor of his bedroom as a kid. He was convinced there were monsters under his bed and murderers outside his windows.  
But the scares always ended at sunrise. It was pink and usually a little frosty, dew drops forming on the grass. It was clean and pure and cute.  
A little like his date.  
He blushed at the thought.

 

Yachi Hitoka was honestly surprised at how well this date thing was going. They walked through the exhibit and she got to marvel at the colours. Meanwhile Yamaguchi was tall and handsome and he seemed genuinely interested when she compared the works to JMW Turner.   
He even knew what pointillism was. This made her heart flutter a little.  
After the exhibit they went to a little café to have tea and cake in a way that was exactly like how she'd always imagined it all through middle and high school.  
They were probably a bit too old for this, she briefly pondered, but then Yamaguchi smiled and she'd feel her cheeks heat up and she had to hide her face behind her cup.  
Yamaguchi had studied Japanese and Sociology, he told her. But when they graduated, neither he nor his best friend Tsukishima had felt like they were ready to move back home and start life as a salaryman or whatever. So they'd taken a job at a diner and moved into a run-down house in a poorer part of Kyoto with some strange painter as a room mate while they figured out what they wanted to do with their lives.  
He looked apologetic as he said it, but it all sounded very adventurous to Yachi.  
That was the kind of decision she'd never make in her life. She'd always just rolled into things. Flotsam waiting to beach somewhere, only to be picked up by the tide.  
From middle school to high school, from high school to university. And then to post-grad. It had never felt like a decision, really. Just the next logical step.  
She stared at Yamaguchi with wide eyes, and it made him blush. “That's really cool, Yamaguchi-san. That sounds super brave.”  
“It's... not, really,” he said. “My parents think we're just loafing.”  
“But you work.”  
“I guess?”  
“So have you figured it out?” Yachi asked tentatively. “Do you know what you want to be?”  
He sagged. “Not really. I kind of want to be a teacher.”  
“Ohhh, you'd be good at that.”  
“But it involves dealing with a lot of... kids. That's... I'm not sure about that.”  
Yachi nodded vehemently. She totally understood. Dealing with kids, especially the uni ones, was awful.

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi listened as his date told him about the perils of dealing with university students.  
How they'd just walk in while she was doing something, and just... expect her to know things.  
Like when her professor would be back. She sounded mildly offended and a little frantic as she explained this.  
He giggled. Yachi seemed like a punctual sort. The type to have perfect notes and always know when and where classes were. It seemed like her professor, however, was not.  
“It's the plants,” she said. “Sometimes he's walking across campus and he gets distracted by a particular specimen of urtica dioica and he'll come back two hours later with a bag full of stinging nettles and his hands covered in rash.”  
“That sounds... unpleasant?” Yamaguchi said. He'd had some pretty eccentric professors, but they wouldn't usually let their obsessions harm them, at least.  
Maybe it was a botany thing.

 

“Thank you for the date,” Yachi Hitoka said as they walked to her bus stop together. “I had a great time.”  
Yamaguchi rubbed the back of his neck and looked down.  
“Eheh. Yeah,” he said. “It was nice. We could, uh, do this again sometime. Maybe.”  
She nodded, heart fluttering some more at the way his cheeks seemed to flush. This adventurous, brave man asking her. Again. On a Second Date.  
“I'd like that,” she said, a little breathlessly.  
“Will you get home all right?” he asked as she flagged down a bus.  
“Mmm. No worries! I'll probably see you tomorrow!”  
He blinked.  
“Ah! Yes. Diner. Yes.”  
And with that she stepped on, waving at him as the vehicle left.  
She was practically vibrating.  
This was nice, she thought. That had been really... nice.  
She opened her phone. One rather prominent text message from Suga was splashed across the top of her screen.

 

 _Today 18:20  
_ From _**Sugawara K:** _ __  
"How is it going? Everything ok?"

 _Today 19:11  
_ From _**Yachi H:** _ __  
"Date's over. It was very nice. On my way home now."

 

That should do, she thought as she put her phone away.  
She got off the bus humming to herself and nearly danced up the steps to her apartment.  
Once inside, she put on her pyjamas and made some tea, crawling on the couch underneath a blanket to watch k-drama’s in an effort to keep the giddy feeling in her stomach alive.  
Her laptop bleeped, but she closed the lid and pulled her blanket tight.  
The last thing she wanted to do right now was deal with her siblings.

 

* * *

 

«Yo, how was the beach party?» Kuroo's voice said when a new tile on the chat program lit up.   
It showed Oikawa lounging on some balcony overlooking the sea, sun blazing behind him. He was sipping from a giant glass of what was hopefully water and looking miserable despite the luxurious environment.  
« It was difficult, » Oikawa whined, « and I forgot how strong they make the drinks over here. I'm still nursing a hangover. »   
« Oh poor, pitiful you, » Sugawara's voice crackled. His screen flipped on, showing him sitting at a table in a tiny kitchen, with a bowl of rice.  
« Shush, Suga. I don't expect someone like you to understand. »   
« Hey, I work nights too, » Sugawara said. « But it's almost like I choose not to spend every single one of them getting dead drunk and waking up in some stranger's bed. »   
« Blah blah, I have to get my rocks off somehow. I can't become an old maid like you, » Oikawa huffed.  
« Cold, man, » came the voice of Kuroo.  
« You! » Oikawa said, jabbing his finger at the screen of his phone, « you don't get to comment. You can get laid whenever you want to. »   
Kuroo's face came into view, complete with smug grin. « That is one of the advantages of a committed relationship. You should try it sometime. »   
« Too much work, » whined both Oikawa and Sugawara.  
«Awesome , » Kuroo sniggered.   
« I wonder how Yachi's date went, » Oikawa said, downing the rest of his glass. « Why is she not on? I want to ask her all about this boy and what he did and how he looks. »   
Sugawara rolled his eyes. « At this point I'm almost certain she's ignoring you. »   
« She may just be, you know, busy, » Oikawa said, waggling his eyebrows.  
« She's not that kind of girl. »   
« How would you know? » Oikawa scoffed.  
Sugawara raised an eyebrow. « Unlike you, I've actually met her. Also she texted me at like eight. Apparently the date was nice. »   
«Nice?» Oikawa sighed. «How boring you people are!»

 

* * *

 

“I'm home.”  
Yamaguchi Tadashi closed the front door and took off his shoes.  
Humming happily to himself, he put his coat away and shuffled through the hallway, sliding open a door into the living area.  
“Hello,” came a mildly disinterested voice from the couch.  
“Oh, hey Kageyama. Tsukki not home yet, huh?”  
The young man called Kageyama, sleek black hair and blue eyes, looked up from his drawing and frowned.  
“Never mind,” Yamaguchi said.  
The small house he and Tsukki had ended up renting was rickety and old, with water pipes that had barely any pressure and electricity that was spotty at times. This made it cheap, but still not quite cheap enough for two people working part time in a diner. So while Yamaguchi and Tsukki both took one of the bedrooms on the second floor, the attic was rented out to a third room mate. Kageyama seemed to enjoy the big drafty room that spanned most of the house underneath the roof. He needed a lot of space, he said, for his art stuff. It probably helped that he could use it as a refuge to avoid people as well.  
The young painter was a bit awkward, Yamaguchi had noticed, and he could be very blunt, but he was nice enough. It was a pity, then, that he and Tsukki really didn't get along.  
Mostly, Kageyama seemed to ignore Tsukki, and Tsukki did not appreciate his jabs being ignored.  
Yamaguchi shrugged and pulled open the fridge. “I thought I'd make stir-fry tonight,” he said. “you want some?”  
“I've eaten, thanks.”  
“Thanks for the advice, by the way,” Yamaguchi said, bringing a bunch of vegetables and a large knife to the counter.  
“Did you enjoy the Fujishima exhibit?” Kageyama closed his sketchbook and got up, suddenly interested.  
“Mm. It was cool. My date certainly liked it,” Yamaguchi said, peeling an onion with a big grin on his face.  
Kageyama opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk. “That's good,” he said.  
“And I remembered most of what you told me. About Romanticism and stuff.”  
The painter poured himself a glass and went to sit at the kitchen table. “Which one did you like most?” he asked.  
“Painting?”  
“Yes, what else?”  
“Oh, there was a sunrise one,” Yamaguchi said. “Something something eastern sea.”  
“He did do good sunrises. Yes,” Kageyama muttered. “I’ve been trying to figure out how he captured them with that much… life.”  
“Mmm?” Yamaguchi hummed, filling a pot of water.  
“Never mind,” his room mate said. “I’ll figure it out eventually.”  
Yamaguchi nodded, pouring oil in a pan. Images of Yachi's sparkling eyes fluttered across his vision. The way her cheeks gained this soft pink hue whenever she'd get a little embarrassed.  
It was amazing that she seemed so happy to be on a date with him. He was fairly sure she was way out of his league. The fact that she was so nervous throughout, was both adorable and slightly baffling.  
At the kitchen table, Kageyama frowned at the grin plastered on Yamaguchi's face. He downed his glass and got up, slinking back up the stairs while his room mate cooked, lost in thought.

 


	4. Bicycle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yachi is tired.

Yachi Hitoka had been a goddess for ten years, five months and twelve days.   
At least, that's how long she'd known that she was a goddess. It had never really been that clear to her how one _became_ a goddess, and if it counted if you weren’t fully aware of this fact.   
She'd gone to watch a band in Tokyo, one of her first big adventures, and she'd been so nervous that she'd lost her group of friends. And that's when Shimizu found her.   
Yachi remembered it like it had happened just the day before. This gorgeous woman, a few years older than her, had found her crying in the bathroom and had spoken to her in a language she'd never heard before.   
But she had understood her perfectly.   
By the time the two of them had found Yachi's worried friends, it felt like they'd already known each other for years.   
Shimizu was amazing, talented, foreign. Way out of Yachi's league, but still she made her feel safe. Comfortable. Like they were old friends, or sisters.

It was Shimizu who had explained it to her, over a series of coffee dates and phone calls. The goddess thing.   
It had taken some… effort.   
Not that Yachi hadn't been quick to believe that Shimizu was a moon goddess. That was pretty obvious, if you thought about it. She'd shown her one night, how her hair could grow and billow all on its own. How it could curl and sway, turning into an intricate dance of swirling locks.   
Yachi had gaped, wide-eyed, at her, and Shimizu had just smiled that soft smile of hers.   
No sane person would ever disbelieve that Shimizu was a goddess.  
It was the other thing Yachi had trouble grasping.   
The part where she was also one, though probably nowhere near as fancy as Shimizu, and how that meant that she had goddess powers and goddess duties and all kinds of stuff.  
That she was special. That part had been the strangest. Yachi had always kinda assumed she was going to be bland and unimportant her entire life.

Yachi got up at 3:32 on the morning after her date. She felt oddly light while she stepped into the shower.   
With half an hour left until sunrise, she pedalled through the streets of a sleepy Kyoto, humming to herself a little.  
This was the duty she's been given: fight back the night.   
As Eos, goddess of Sunrise, she should go out at dawn and chase away the shadows of night.   
It had sounded much easier than it actually turned out to be, because in June, such as now, the sun rose at 4:43 in the morning, which made 'going out at dawn' a very early affair indeed.  
Also, the shadows of night were creepy, vicious things, and they seemed to be getting stronger.  
She parked her bike and climbed the stone steps to the shrine, until she reached the top and... that man was there again.   
Yachi felt her shoulders sag and the creepy man with the blue eyes turned around.  
“Hello again,” he said.  
“Um. Hi.”  
“I'm, uh, sorry about yesterday,” he added. “I've been told before that I'm too straightforward. I didn't mean to upset you or... harm you, I guess.”  
“Oh, uh,” Yachi said. “That's, uh, fine? I'm... fine. I'm going now.”  
The man stood up but Yachi already turned around and ran back down the stairs, turning into the forest just past the Shoji gate.   
She really needed to find a new place, she thought, as she slipped between brushes and branches on her way to the clearing.   
She placed her backpack on the dirt and pulled out her broom while in the east the sky paled.  
Squaring her shoulders, Yachi drew a circle in the sand.

Around her, the night gathered. Shadows of trees and bushes grew long, inching across the ground. Darkness crept up tree trunks and leaked off leaves in long, thin threads. Ink spilling across the landscape.  
Yachi took a deep breath and whacked at one, sending it off hissing as if it had been burnt.  
“It doesn't matter what you use,” Shimizu-senpai had told her. “As long as you feel comfortable with it. It is an extension of you. Of your power.”  
The broom, foldable, plastic, pastel teal, seemed to glow a little in the gloom of this forest. A soft, warm sort of light that comforted Yachi. It travelled in an arc and sliced straight through a tendril extending itself from a nearby tree branch.  
The shadows were many, and they kept coming. She got very bus, battling the strange formless blobs. Maybe that's why she didn't notice a darkness deeper than usual.   
A ball of night was coming closer, absorbing some of the other shadows and melting together to form something more, a moving, swirling creature that sped out of the crowd and sprung at her, tugging on the broom so she was tipped off balance.   
It grabbed the glowing weapon, black hand around it melting and hissing, but it did not let go. Instead of breaking, melting away, it continued to pull as more and more blackness was sent to it, and endless supply of reinforcements, until Yachi had to step outside of her circle to be able to hold on.   
The thing lashed out almost immediately, fingers snapping at her and grabbing her wrist.   
The darkness burned her skin and Yachi yelped, letting go of her broom and springing back.   
It lunged at her again, throwing itself at her with an otherworldly growl, only to be stopped by the edges of her circle. It splashed against the barrier, shaking its confines before it backed off, disappearing into the mass of dark filling the forest.   
Yachi sat, shaking, unarmed, in a small circle while outside, the darkness swirled.  
Her heart was beating in her throat. On her wrist, a dark bruise was forming.   
This was new. This was bad. This had never happened before.   
It was so like her to take up a job that’s been going on for thousands of years, and somehow mess it up so badly that she actually got hurt and would probably die.  
Outside, the shadows whirled and danced, whispering their dark secrets in a never-ending murmur and Yachi wondered, at length, if her circle would hold, and what would happen if it didn't. Would they engulf her? Burn her? Was it like that one scene in Roger Rabbit where the man just melted?  
Because that image still haunted her and she would never have watched that movie if she'd known it would be quite that horrific.   
She swallowed, pondering the possibilities of being melted alive in a sea of black and she could feel herself start to hyperventilate, so instead she tried to focus on breathing.   
In, out. No passing out. Just breathe and don't think of horrific deaths. 

In the east, the sky became lighter, going from a dark cloudy grey to a slightly lighter grey.   
Thank all the other gods.  
Slowly, the shadows shrunk away, leaving the clearing around her circle like the sea pulling back from a beach.   
Yachi waited another frightening twenty minutes before she finally stood up. The day had long since started and she put a tentative foot outside of the circle.   
Nothing.   
The gloom of the forest around her was quiet, no hissing, whispering terrors to be found. Just the sound of birds and the soft rustling of leaves.   
Carefully, she took a full step. And immediately wobbled.  
Tiredness hit her like a brick to the head.   
“Whoah,” she muttered, slapping a hand to her forehead.   
She felt woozy. Very, very woozy. And very sleepy. Like she could sink to the floor right here and sleep forever.  
It was mostly fear that kept her standing upright as she slowly made her way back out of the forest and down the steps.   
The strange man came by as she was fiddling with the lock on her bike. He nodded at her.   
“Uh, bye,” she said quickly, and she climbed on, pedalling down the street with some effort, until she hit the slope down and she could coast.   
Wind in her face, Yachi blinked. It was warm this time of year. Warm and comfortable. She was so tired. Why was everything so comfy? It made it hard for her to keep her eyes open. 

 

“Wow, are you ok?”  
Yachi squinted, into the worried looking face of the creepy blue-eyed man.   
“Are you sick?” he asked.  
“I’m… ow.” Deeply disoriented, Yachi tried to move, only to find that quite a lot of her hurt.   
“You crashed your bike,” the man said, as if he read her confusion.   
“Oh,” Yachi said. “Oohhhh. Oh my gods!”  
She sat up, adrenalin springing her muscles into action. “Did I hurt anyone? Did I break things? I'm so sorry!”  
“You pretty much just hit a street light, miss,” the man said, indicating her bike a little further away. It was bent at a nasty angle, and the street light next to it had a large scratch.  
“Oh no.”  
She scrabbled upright and got back to her feet, only to start swaying again.  
“Whoah.” The boy grabbed her arm and walked her to a nearby wall, leaning her against it.  
“Really, I’m fine,” she started saying, but her tongue got a little thick halfway through, so it ended up as ‘mfine’. She tugged at her arm, trying to get away from him.   
The boy tilted his head. “You don’t look fine, miss.”  
“Hey, you guys ok? I heard a bang.” A third voice came closer. It sounded pleasant, warm. Also, very enthusiastic, like it belonged to a child in a theme park.   
“Uh, she says she is, but she’s like… fainting,” the black haired man was saying.  
“Ohhhh, did you crash? Oh man, this is a nice bike.”  
Yachi fluttered her eyes open with some effort to find a redhead, only slightly taller than her, studying the wreckage of her bicycle.   
“Oh, I love these,” he was saying. “The frame is very strong, it’s bent a little but I can fix this right up.”  
“Who the hell are you?” the other boy said.  
“I'm Hinata! Nice to meet you. I have a bike shop a little down the street. If you want I can have a look at it.”  
“What are you, an ambulance chaser? You always pick up customers by watching them crash?”  
“Well you're the one harassing women who have just crashed. What are you even doing? She's obviously afraid of you.”  
“I... what?” The dark haired boy froze, blinked and let go of her arm. Yachi sagged against the wall.   
“Please, don’t mind me. I just need a moment,” she said. “’m Fine.”  
She was getting tired again. Her eyes were so heavy. Her knees buckled and she sunk down.  
“Wow! Are you ok, miss?” Hinata's voice came closer and a warm hand tapped on her cheek. “Miss? Should we call an ambulance?”  
Yachi blinked. Hinata's face hovered over her, warm and round. It reminded her a little of Suga. Bright as the sun itself.  
“Oh, please don't.I'm just... I'm very tired.”  
“Mm, well let me look at your bike. You, what's your name?”  
“Kageyama.”  
“Kageyama-san, can you take the bike? Just over to my place. It looks like it's gonna rain soon. We’ll get her a warm drink, and I'll see if I can do something about this bike.”  
“No, really, it's ok,” she started mumbling. She was feeling a little better already. The orange-haired guy pulled her up.   
“Thank you,” she said, standing up and letting go.   
That was a bad idea. She swayed, just managing to grab the poor now very scratched street light.  
“We should definitely get you a doctor,” Kageyama said.  
The overcast sky was getting darker   
“No, it's... I'm fine, really,” Yachi said, taking a step forward to prove it. The first drops of rain started falling and her knees, treacherous things that they were, started wobbling again.  
“Whooahhh.”   
“Dumbass, what are you trying to prove?” A strong hand held her upper arm.  
“Alright, how far is this shop of yours. We'd better get inside, before my books get wet.”  
“Right this way!”  
Yachi tried to protest but here knees were having none of it. Leaning heavily on the black haired man, she slowly walked down the road.   
If only her eyes would stay open for a bit longer.  


Yachi dreamed.  
She was on a ship, gently swaying, seagulls overhead shouting and squabbling.  
The waves were high, ocean spray sending drops of water into her hair and onto her skin.  
The ship lunged and she was swept sideways, into some soft sacking. What was this?   
Bales of hay? Cotton maybe? It was comfy here.   
Maybe coffee beans.  
“Mmmm, coffee,” she muttered. She snuggled in, rubbing her forehead into the warm fabric.  
The seagulls were laughing loudly now, but it didn't matter. 

 

The smell of roast coffee beans travelled up Yachi's nose. It tickled her senses, waking up the part of her brain that would send all the other parts into action.   
Yachi squinted. In front of her stood a mug of coffee.   
“Mm?”  
The mug was in the shape of a unicorn and it stood in the middle of a table, on top of a plastic sunflower tablecloth that she didn't recognise.   
Yachi blinked. She was on a bench of some sort. Someone had diligently put band-aids on the scrapes on her elbow and her knee. They stung a little. There was also a bandage around her wrist. She rolled her hand. A dull pain sat under the bandage, like a bruise or an old burn.   
Frowning, she looked up. She was in a workshop. Bicycles hung from chains on the ceiling, the whole thing smelled of grease and she could see a guy work on her bike a little further away.   
At the corner of the table sat the strange man, and part of her brain came up with the name Kageyama, so she decided to just go with that. He was doodling in a notebook while staring at the orange haired man.   
“Um,” Yachi said.  
Kageyama startled and turned, like he'd just been caught stealing. He gave her a stern look.   
“You're back,” he said.  
“I'm sorry, I must have...”  
“Yachi-san!” the redhead came up, wiping his hands on a dirty rag. Hinata, the helpful part of her brain said. “Are you better? You fainted.”  
“Again,” Kageyama added.  
“I... thank you,” Yachi said. “You really shouldn't have.” She made a vague gesture at her current state.  
“You were muttering about coffee when we carried you here, so we made you some,” Hinata went on, “sorry about the mug, it's an old one from my sister, the only plastic one I have. Kageyama thought you'd break a grown-up one.”  
Wow, she'd been right about the name. Good job, her.  
“I didn-” Kageyama started protesting, but Hinata glanced at him with a grin.“Ok, I did think that. You don't want to also get shards in your hands. You're a mess.”   
“Rude,” Hinata muttered.  
“I'm sorry,” Yachi said again. “I'm so sorry to inconvenience you. You guys must think I'm-”  
She stopped when Hinata leaned over the table and pressed the back of his hand on her forehead with a concerned look on his face.   
“You know, you're cold,” he said. “My little sister would get fevers sometimes when she overworked, and she'd fall asleep on the couch and her forehead would be super hot. But you don't seem to have that.”  
He stepped back and tilted his head. “Well, there's coffee, so maybe that will make you feel better. There's sugar in it!”  
And with that, he walked back to the bike.

Yachi sat there, blinking slowly. His hand had been really warm. Like, _really warm_.   
Shaking her head, she grabbed the mug and took little sips. The hot liquid was soothing, its warmth spreading out from inside her chest. She was content to let the coffee work its magic for a little while, before she leaned over to look at Kageyama's book.   
He was staring off into space again.  
“Excuse me. What are you drawing?” she asked.   
He blinked and turned to her. “I'm just doodling.”  
When she kept looking, he rolled his eyes and turned the notebook to her. One of the open pages was filled with a picture of the temple: a view from the square, minutely detailed and shaded. On the page next to it were little doodles of Shoji gates, of her broken bike, and also small portraits of Hinata and her.   
“Wow, you're really good,” she whispered.  
“Uh, thanks.”  
“No, I mean you're Really Good. I haven't seen many people draw like this.”  
“Mm,” he said, pulling the book back.  
“Is that what you do?” she asked, taking another sip. “Do you draw? Like, for a living?”  
“I paint,” Kageyama answered, pouting. “But it doesn't pay much.”  
“I'm sorry to hear that.”  
“It's because they're idiots,” Kageyama went on. Yachi gave him a confused look.  
“They keep telling me I'm not... marketable, whatever that means. People keep telling me I'm good, but I should draw what people like.”  
“What is that?” Yachi asked, blowing into her unicorn mug.  
Kageyama shrugged. “Superheroes? I don't know. Not things I want to paint, at least.”  
“So what is it you want to paint?” Hinata said. He'd apparently given up on the bike and was washing his hands in the sink of the small kitchennette nearby.  
“I want to capture the sun,” Kageyama said, voice grave and dead serious.  
“Uhh, you might wanna get goggles for that. Fireproof gloves, also,” Hinata giggled.  
“Not like that, dumbass!”  
“Oh!” Yachi piped up. “Is that why you're up there in the morning? For the sunrise?”  
The painter nodded, and Hinata came to sit at the table with his own mug. A 'grown-up' mug, Yachi couldn't help but notice.  
“It's hard to look at the sun directly, without burning your eyes,” Kageyama said, “so I'm looking at roundabout ways. Like the colours of sunrise and sunset. I want to get to know it.”  
“That's weird,” Hinata said. “You're weird. Just get those eclipse glasses.”  
Kageyama's face shot up in frustration. “That's not- It's not the same, dumbass!”  
“Right, right,” Hinata giggled.

Yachi watched them bicker in mild confusion and finished her coffee. She checked the clock on the wall: almost seven. Wow she'd sure taken her time. Sitting here in the cozy presence of these two weirdos had made her feel a lot better though.  
She got up.   
“Thank you!” she said. “Thank you so much. I'm really sorry for all the inconvenience. But I should really go.”  
“Yeah,” Kageyama said. “To a doctor.”  
“I'm... I'm a lot better now, thank you.”  
Kageyama raised an eyebrow, but stayed quiet while Yachi unsteadily got to her feet.   
“Did you, uh, manage to fix my bike?” Yachi mumbled.  
“Oh! Yes.”  
Hinata jumped up and showed her. “The steering column got a bit bent but I think I straightened it out. I also put your chain back on and greased it. You lost a few spokes in your front wheel but it's not really a hazard. If I'm gonna fix that I'd have to replace the whole wheel.”  
“Oh! Please don't bother too much.”  
“Either way, this should get you home, at least. If you want, you can always come back later and I'll tune the whole thing up. It's a neat little bike.”   
“Yes, thank you!” she said, picking up her backpack. “How much do I owe you?”  
The red haired man looked at her blankly.   
“For the repairs?” Yachi said. “This is your job, isn't it?”  
“I just bent it a little, you don't need to pay me.”  
“No, but I insist.”  
“It's ok, really,” he laughed. Boy, was that smile bright.   
“But-”  
“Really, miss,” he said. “I'm not even open yet, and you didn't come here as a customer.”  
After some more back and forth, Yachi gave up and put on her backpack, promising herself she'd come back here later for a check-up.

She thanked both men profusely and got on her bike, pedalling through slick, shiny streets.   
The rain had stopped, thankfully, but it was heavily overcast still, air thick with the almost coppery smell you get after a cloudburst on a summer day.   
She took deep breaths of the fresh air, trying to keep her head clear.   
The bike shop and its occupants had distracted her, but now the images of the shadows whirling around her circle, trying to break in, came back with a vengeance.   
She shuddered, wondering why and how they had gotten so strong. How they managed to grab her broom.   
It was with a small pang that she suddenly remembered that she lost the thing. They took her broom!  
Frowning, she pedaled on, losing speed as she went. Whatever energy she'd gotten from sitting among friendly people and drinking coffee, it was quickly draining from her. Her legs felt heavy, her arms stiff. The bruise on her wrist throbbed with a dull ache.   
Not too far now, she told herself. The last thing she wanted to do was crash again.   
By the time she finally reached her apartment block, she was completely exhausted.   
Yachi parked her bike and dragged herself up the stairs, not even bothering to say hello to her neighbour as she passed her in the hall.   
She entered her room, dropped her backpack and barely made it out of her shoes before she fell onto her bed, fast asleep.

 

In her backpack on the floor, her phone occasionally buzzed.   
Online messages blinked across her screen, pushing each other off as more and more came through.  
_Yesterday 22:15 God of Swag:_ « Hey yachan!! How did your date go?!? » _  
Yesterday 22:16 God of Swag:_ « Yachan you'd better not actually still be busy (⊙_⊙) Suga would be highly disappointed he believes in your innocence » _  
Today 19:38 God of Swag:_ « You havent shown up since last night were all dying here ( ＞﹏＜ ). » _  
Today 20:32 Mailman:_ “ Yo! You ok? Are you sitting on the couch eating ice cream and avoiding the outside world? Hit me up. ” _  
Today 20:46 God of Swag:_ « Yachi-channnnnn ( `ε´ ) do you really think i'll b ignored? » _  
Today 21:10 Mailman:_ “ Ok we're really worried now. Drop us a line girl. ” _  
Today 21:11 God of Swag:_ « Yachaaannnnnnnnnnn » _  
Today 21:11 God of Swag:_ « Youre breaking my heart » _  
Today 21:12 God of Swag:_ « Such a cruel woman » _  
Today 22:04 Mailman:_ “ Yo Yachi I'm officially getting Suga involved. ” _  
Today: 23:41 Suga-san:_ “Ok i have two overly protective idiots lighting up my mailbox. What the fuck.”  _  
Today 23:41 Suga-san:_ “Are you ok?” 

 

And beneath that, near the bottom, two text messages.

_Today 06:21  
From _ _**Yamaguchi T:** _ _  
_ “Hey, I had a great time yesterday. Today's special is pain au chocolat.”

_Today 16:54  
From _ _**Yamaguchi T:** _ _  
_ “Busy day huh? Let me know when you have some time. I'd like to see you again.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the first batch of chapters! I hope you had fun reading them.   
> Let me know what you think :)  
> Next batch should come in a week's time.


	5. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yamaguchi pines.

“Fried rice! One order of fried rice, ready!”  
Yamaguchi Tadashi put the plate out and sighed, washing his hands before he walked into the store proper and plopped onto one of the stools by the bar to take his break.  
Tsukki wordlessly prepared a hazelnut cappuccino and put it in front of him.  
“Thanks,” Yamaguchi said. He opened his phone for what must have been the sixteenth time that morning.  
The shop was quieter now. It was nearly eleven. Too late for Yachi to come by.  
Tsukki raised an eyebrow at him and he pouted.  
Two days. Yachi hadn't shown up at the diner in two whole days.  
Not since their fateful date.  
“She's usually here every day we open,” he whined.  
“You're exaggerating,” Tsukki said, as if he was following Yamaguchi's wordless train of thought.  
“You don't think it's weird that suddenly she's not here for two days?”  
“Maybe she's busy,” Tsukki droned.  
“Too busy to even text?”  
Tsukki said nothing. He made himself an espresso and sat down behind the counter.  
“She's ghosting me,” Yamaguchi huffed.  
“Mmm.”  
“I really thought we were getting along...”  
“Mmm.”  
A thought struck Yamaguchi and it was equal parts frightening and bright. “What if she's sick?”  
Tsukki glanced at him over the rim of his cup.  
“What if she got hit by a bus? What if she died?”  
“Ok, now you really are exaggerating,” Tsukki mumbled.  
“No one would know to tell us. Like... we're not related or anything.”  
Tsukki sighed and opened a newspaper. “I'll let you know if I see any headlines about local grad students getting run over by buses,” he said.  
With a groan, Yamaguchi took his cappuccino and retreated back into his kitchen.

 

* * *

  

Yachi Hitoka awoke from a deep, dreamless sleep with a pained groan.  
Her throat was parched. She felt all icky. Smelly, too.  
With one eye, she glanced at her clock. Noon.  
Noon?!  
She sat up with a shock. Her professor was going to kill her.  
Swinging her legs out of bed, she got up and almost crashed into the night stand.  
Ok, don't get up too fast. That was bad. Easy mistake to make.  
She shakily made it to the bathroom, where she drank down two full glasses of water and started brushing her teeth.  
She was going to have to mail her professor, she thought. Tell him that she was sick.  
Yes.  
These things happen, and it's not like she would be lying.  
Standing here, leaning heavily on the sink, her legs felt like lead. She would have to maybe take some rest today.  
She rinsed her mouth and padded to her desk, opening up her laptop. It hummed into life and immediately threw a bunch of messages and unread mail notifications across the screen.  
The bleary red numbers made her head hurt. She squinted past them and opened her mail to compose something to her professor, only to find an email from him already there, asking if she was ok. The thing was dated 'yesterday'.  
That couldn't be right.  
Yachi peered at the date on her clock. June 11.  
Something deep and dreadful sank in her stomach. She'd lost a day.  
A full day.  
How does one lose a full day? That was insane and terrifying and so many people were going to be so very disappointed and-  
She stopped herself long enough to type a message to her boss. If she was going to make it up to the world, she'd have to push this mounting panic down long enough to get something done.  
Her wrist was hurting, she was so very tired, but she'd lost a full day and that was horrific.  
Pushing away from the desk, she sat on the bed to put on her shoes. She had to do something. Talk to someone maybe. She actually missed sunrise!  
That was so irresponsible! Her siblings were going to be so angry! She had failed in her duty again and they were going to-  
Ok, ok.  
Breathe, she told herself. Her eyelids were so very heavy.  
Calm down. Close your eyes and just breathe.  
Yachi sat there, taking a few deep breaths, and felt herself sink into a deep black morass again.

 

* * *

  

Yamaguchi Tadashi spent the day drifting around like a storm cloud.  
Grumpy. Uneasy. A little sad.  
Occasionally he’d check his phone for a message that was probably no longer coming.  
He really thought they were getting along. She'd seemed so happy.  
After work he'd gone for a run, just to get rid of some of the restlessness in his body.  
He had wandered around the shopping district, looking at shoe stores and pointedly avoiding any cutesy tea and cake places.  
He was being an idiot, and he knew it. She didn't owe him anything.  
They went out, and somehow it went wrong. It happens.  
She didn't seem the type to just... give him the cold shoulder, but maybe she was kinda scared or something. Did he scare her? With all his talk of finding himself and wanting to have adventures before settling down? Maybe she really did think he was a bum.  
Frowning and unable to shake his dark thoughts, he meandered back to his own neighbourhood to drop by the grocery store.

 

“Hello.”  
That evening, Yamaguchi squeezed through the door of their living room to find Tsukki on the couch, reading. Some concoction was bubbling away on the stove.  
“Heya.” Yamaguchi answered, dropping his grocery store bags on the table. “Whatcha making?”  
“Barley tea.”  
“Ohhhh. I thought I'd fry some fish tonight, you want some?”  
“I got a burger earlier, I'm good,” Tsukki said, looking up from his book. “You look terrible.”  
“Yeah, thanks a lot.”  
Yamaguchi grumpily unpacked his bags, shoving mushrooms and raw fish into the fridge with a force the poor ingredients probably didn't deserve.  
He could feel the eyes of Tsukki on his back, and it served to slowly make him frustrated again.  
“What?” he finally said, turning around with a glare.  
Tsukki blinked. “Look, Yamaguchi, it's-.”  
“She dumped me, ok?” Yamaguchi huffed. “Yachi-san obviously dumped me. She went and disappeared. So excuse me if I am personally affected by that.”  
His friend didn't immediately respond. He sat up and put his headphones on the coffee table before heading into the kitchen.  
Yamaguchi flopped onto a kitchen chair.  
“I pined for that girl for months! How can I mess it up in a single date? I thought I was doing well, I really did!”  
Tsukki sighed, obviously looking for some kind of explanation that wasn't complete sarcasm. They knew each other well enough now that Tsukki wouldn't laugh at him, but god, was the guy bad at comforting people. Just Yamaguchi's luck that his best friend was of the cool and stoic persuasion.  
With a whine, he dropped his head on the kitchen table.  
Just then, creaks on the stairs announced the arrival of Kageyama.  
Great. Sarcasm _and_ blunt awkwardness, what a winning combination.  
“What's this,” Tsukki sneered at the sight of his house mate. “Are the fumes of paint finally getting to you? Don't tell me you actually crave human contact?”  
“I need to eat, Tsukishima,” Kageyama said, dropping his sketchbook on the table. He walked into the kitchen with a mildly confused glance at Yamaguchi.  
“Hmmm? You mean the Starving Artist actually can't live on light and an obsession with sunsets alone?” Tsukishima hummed.  
“What are you even talking about? And stop calling me that,” Kageyama said, pulling a box of ramen out of the cabinet.  
Yamaguchi rolled his eyes. “I'm so not up for this. I'm going to take a bath and go to bed.”

 

* * *

  

Tsukishima Kei watched his old friend go with mild worry. He always got way too invested, way too early, he thought.  
Kageyama was rifling through the cabinet next to him. “What's his problem?” he said, putting a pot on the stove.  
“Since when do you care?” Tsukishima asked.  
Kageyama shrugged and went back to cooking, while Tsukishima pondered if he should put his headphones back on. He'd promised Yamaguchi he'd be a better room mate, but this guy was just so… ugh.  
Rolling his eyes, Tsukki went to stir his barley tea.  
“Scoot,” he said, reaching into a cabinet for a glass pitcher.  
“Is this about the date?” Kageyama asked.  
Tsukishima looked at him, blinking. “How do you even know about that? You're like a ghost. You're never down here.”  
“I helped Yamaguchi with art history for the exhibition,” Kageyama said, frowning at a few floppy carrots he'd just pulled out of the fridge. “He asked me about it.”  
“Well apparently that date didn't go too well,” Tsukishima grumbled.  
“He said it was nice like two nights ago.”  
“That was two nights ago,” Tsukishima said. “This is today.”  
He poured the tea into a sieve. While the liquid dripped through, he leaned over the kitchen table, idly flipping through Kageyama's sketchbook.  
“Oi, be careful with that!”  
“Yeah yeah, your ramen's boiling over,” Tsukishima said, tilting his head at the stove.  
“Fuck!” Kageyama dropped his vegetable knife and grabbed the pot currently bubbling madly.  
Tsukishima grinned. God, how useless could one person be?  
He turned his attention back to the sketchbook.  
Ok, so not _completely_ useless. Just really impractical.  
The idiot Kageyama had zero life skills, but the guy could draw. Even Tsukishima could see the technical skill bursting from the pages. And those were just Kageyama's doodles. The sketchbook was full of little stupid things. A quick portrait of the mail man, sketches of trees, benches, a stop sign. Three whole pages were filled with colour gradients from greys to pinks to oranges to blues. Like a swatch of sunrises.  
Behind him, Kageyama was mopping up hot water and cursing under his breath.  
“I can't believe you have trouble boiling water,” Tsukishima mumbled, turning another page. “It's a miracle you've survived this long.”  
“Shut up, dumbass.”

Tsukishima froze. The page he'd opened showed a ridiculously detailed sketch of a temple. And right next to that, a face he recognized.  
“You know Yachi-san?” he said.  
“Hahh?”  
“Yachi-san, the girl in this book. You know her?”  
Kageyama turned around to glare at the doodle his house mate pointed out.  
“Oh, her. I guess.”  
“What do you mean, you 'guess'?” Tsukishima said.  
“She's like a shrine maiden or something? I met her at that temple. I tried to draw her but she freaked out.”  
“Gee, I wonder why,” Tsukishima said.  
“Oh, fuck off.”  
“No, no, do continue. You scared the girl with your intangible weirdness, and then what happened?”  
“Nothing. She's just there a lot, and so am I. Yesterday, she crashed her bike, and so me and this other guy helped her out," Kageyama said, stirring ramen in what little water there was left in his pot.  
“This other guy that you drew four...” Tsukishima turned the page, “ten times in here?”  
With a quick motion, the book was snatched from his fingers. “It's research,” Kageyama growled. “He looks like the sun.”  
“Mmmhmmmm,” Tsukishima smirked. “So is she ok?”  
“What?”  
“Yachi-san. Is she ok? Because she's that date Yamaguchi is all upset about.”  
“Ohhh.”  
If Kageyama's face was a painting, it would be called 'Oblivious stupidity, a study'.  
“I guess?” he said. “She was all drowsy. That's a weird girl.”  
“Hmmm,” Tsukishima said. “Unlike you and your obsessions, of course.”  
“Fuck. Off.”  
“Fine, fine,” he shrugged and put the pitcher of tea in the fridge. Next to him, Kageyama was back to chopping vegetables. He'd mercifully taken the noodles off the stove.  
Tsukishima grabbed his magazine and headphones off the coffee table and set off towards the stairs. “Try not to set the kitchen on fire, k?”  
Kageyama rolled his eyes at him.

 

* * *

  

Sugawara Koushi was on his way to work, pondering the merits of getting caught up with whatever stupid drama show his colleagues were obsessing about this time, when his phone started buzzing.  
With a small groan, he opened the chat program that had been trying to bug him all day.  
«Yo!» the voice of Kuroo immediately piped up.  
Sugawara quickly put in the cord of his headphones, silencing him. The guy two seats over on the bus gave him a short glance, then turned back to look out of the window.  
«Hey,» he whispered. «Kinda busy. What do you want?»  
«Suga? When's your next day off?» the voice of Oikawa asked. His tile was tiny, but it very much looked like he was in some hotel room again.  
«Guys, I'm on the bus to work. Can this wait?»  
«Just answer the question, Suga,» Oikawa said sternly.  
«Tomorrow,» Sugawara sighed. «Why?»  
«You're going to Kyoto.»  
«Wait, what?»  
«We're worried,» came the voice of Kuroo.  
«Guys, she's a grown woman,» Sugawara hissed, startling the man two seats over again.  
«She doesn't need you to babysit her!» he said, quieter.  
«No, she needs _you_ to babysit her,» Oikawa said.  
«She hasn't answered her phone in two days,» Kuroo added, as if that was conclusive proof of her demise. «When do you get off work tomorrow.»  
«At six in the morning. Look, I understand you're worried but-»  
«I can get you on a direct train at seven.»  
«I will have just finished the night shift, Kuroo!»  
«First class?» Kuroo offered. «You can sleep on the way.»  
«Oh for fuck's sake,» Sugawara whispered.  
«Kuroo Tetsurou. You have _never_ offered to send me anywhere in first class,» said the hurt voice of Oikawa.  
«Well you're not doing me any favours, are you?» Kuroo huffed. «Sugawara here is.»  
«I haven't agreed to anything,» Sugawara grunted.  
«Tomorrow morning, Nagano Train Station. Booked in your name. I'll get you a flex type deal so you can choose when to go back.»  
«Kuroo....»  
«You can thank me later.»  
The bus stopped in front of the hospital and Sugawara got up.  
«This is my stop,» he hissed into his phone. «I hate you all.»  
«Love you too, Su-channn!» Oikawa yelled back, before Sugawara clicked off the device.

 


	6. House call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I throw a whole bunch of world building at you.

“Bzzzzzzzzzt.”  
“Bzzzzt bzzzt bzzzt.”  
“Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.”  
Yachi Hitoka frowned at the harsh sound.  
“Mmf?”  
Who would ring her buzzer this late? It felt like the middle of the night.  
“Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.”  
She wondered briefly if they'd go away if she just ignored it.  
“Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.”  
Whoever it was, they seemed upset.  
“I'm on my way,” Yachi mumbled, and she slipped her leg off the bed.  
She felt like she'd slept forever, and she still wasn't quite ready to get up. Her foot found the floor, and she let her other leg fall too, oozing out of bed like a puddle of melting candle wax.  
She came to rest with her knees on the floor and her torso still very comfortably positioned on the mattress. Very comfortably.  
The buzzing seemed to have stopped.  
Oh good.  
She closed her eyes again.

 

There was a banging sound.  
“Hello? Yachi?” A muffled voice yelled from somewhere.  
“Muh?” Yachi blearily lifted her head.  
The banging continued.  
“Yachi, I swear I will break this door down!” The voice sounded familiar.  
Sighing deeply, she pushed up on her elbows. Lots of her felt stiff.  
“Yachi! Are you there?”  
The banging was still going on, sounding a little more frantic by the minute. It took her a while to figure out it was coming from her front door.  
Oh! Visitors!  
“Just a minute!” she yelled back.  
“Yachi! By the gods, what the hell? Open this door.”  
She frowned. “Suga-san?”  
“Yes!”  
“What are you doing here?”  
“What do you think? Please let me in!”  
Highly confused now, Yachi managed to push herself up and drag her tired body to the entrance.  
Her mind felt like it was still snugly covered in several thick blankets and her body was decidedly jealous.  
She leaned against the wall and slowly slid away three locks before she opened the door, squinting into the very worried face of Sugawara.  
“Thank fuck you're alive,” he said, pushing through.  
Yachi turned around slowly to blearily watch him walk into her room.  
“Phew!” he said. “What is that smell?” He threw open the curtains and the windows. Sunlight streamed into the room, hurting Yachi's eyes.  
“Suga-san? What time is it?”  
“Nearly noon.”  
She blinked. That was weird.  
Vague memories came flitting back to her, like strips of paper blown in by the wind.  
“What day is it?” she finally asked, as Sugawara came back to close the door and peer at her face.  
“The twelfth,” he said, gently taking her arm. “Come sit by the window for a sec?”  
“That can't be right...”  
Yachi let herself be guided to her desk chair, where Suga checked her pulse and pinched her skin.  
“It's Thursday?”  
“Mmmhmm,” Suga hummed, holding open her eye and peering at the pupil.  
“It was like... Tuesday... Oh my gods! I had a meeting with my professor! And I missed my turn to hold permanency at the office!”  
Suga tilted his head. “You've just slept for three days?”  
“Oh gods that's so irresponsible! I should go and apologise. And-”  
“How are you feeling?” Suga interrupted her rambling thoughts.  
She stopped and blinked. “Thirsty.”  
“Right, stay here,” he said, and got up to get her a big glass of water.

Suga brought up a chair and sat next to her while she gulped the whole thing down.  
He laid a hand on her forehead and warmth came pouring in. It almost felt like he was filling her with well-being and energy. Sitting here in the light, with a warm hand on her head, it was like she was being dragged out of a deep, deep swamp.  
“Tell me what happened,” Suga finally said in a soft voice.  
So Yachi told him. About the boy at the temple, and how she had to go into the woods to sweep. She explained how the shadows were growing stronger, how they took her broom and hurt her wrist.  
At this, Suga frowned and started unwrapping the bandage on her arm.  
“I've been woozy ever since,” she said. “This is the first time I feel a little better. I only managed to make it home because those nice people helped me when I crashed my bike. Oh! I should go back there and thank them.”  
“This looks like a bite,” Suga said, inspecting her wrist.  
He was right.  
The mark the shadows had made was a deep and nasty looking purple. Now that she looked at it, it did resemble teeth. Like some very big dog had tried to take her arm off.  
Suga gently placed a finger on the skin and Yachi sucked in a painful breath. It felt like someone prodding her with a hot metal poker. Where his finger lay, the purple faded, briefly, only to return when he pulled his hand back.  
“I've never actually seen a shadow bite before,” he said. He was studying it like it was some kind of strange plant species.  
“Oh no, it's cause I'm the first to ever fail this badly. I'm supposed to beat these things and they got me instead. And I've been so lazy! I haven't swept in days.”  
Suga held up his hands to try to shush her while she merrily travelled down a spiral of regret.  
“Suga-san, they took my broom!” she finally shouted, tears springing in her eyes. She wasn't sure why this was the thing that managed to upset her the most. Maybe because the broom was meant to protect her. It was her weapon and without it she was useless.  
Worse than useless. A target.  
“Alright, here's what we're going to do,” Suga said in that gentle, soft voice of his. “We're going to go out and find some lunch. I'm starving, and you probably haven't eaten in days, which isn't going to be good for your energy levels.”  
Yachi tried to protest, tried to list everything she really should be doing first, but her stomach growled in agreement with Suga. Two to one.  
“But first, you're going to take a shower while I tell Kuroo and Oikawa to stop worrying.”  
“I'm so sorry,” Yachi started saying, when suddenly something cold hit her spine. “Yamaguchi-san! Oh no!”  
She rushed to her phone to find a slurry of new messages.

 

 

_Yesterday 17:45: God of Swag:_ « Ok. Thatsit. Were calling reinforcements. »  
_Yesterday 18:16: Mailman:_ “Yachi? You alright there? We're really getting worried. Oiks is about to have a meltdown and we're gonna send Suga your way.”  
_Yesterday 20:21: Suga-san:_ “Hey Yachi. Any news? These two other idiots are never going to stop unless you tell them you're ok.”  
_Yesterday 23:07: Suga-san:_ “Never mind it seems like ive been drafted to check up on you. See you in the morning.”

 

_Yesterday 14:03  
From: _ _**Unknown** _ _._  
"Hello, this is Yato from the teacher's office. Please bring a doctor's note at your earliest convenience."

_Today 06:04:_  
From: **Yamaguchi T:**  
“Hello Yachi, my housemate Kageyama says you crashed your bike and got hurt. I hope you're feeling better.”

_Today: 10:36:  
From: _ _**Sugawara K** _ _:_  
“Heya. In Kyoto. I'm coming over so please be home. There in twenty”

 

 

Yachi felt heat rise in her cheeks at the growing number of messages. She'd made all these people worry. She was such a terrible, terrible friend.  
She quickly typed a note to Yamaguchi.

 

 

_Today: 12:57:_  
From: **Yachi H:**  
“Yamaguchi-san! I'm so sorry, you must have been worried.{{ ( >_<) }} I'm a little better, but I don't know if I can drop by this week. I'm really sorry!”

 

 

She wondered briefly if that emoji was appropriate. And if there was one that could convey her feelings better, but Suga gave her a stern look.  
“Yachi. Shower.”  
“Right!” She pushed 'send' and got up, carefully making the two steps it took to cross her apartment and head into her bathroom.

When she came back, feeling maybe not refreshed but at least less smelly, she found Suga still at her desk, tapping away at his phone.  
“Are they angry?”  
“Hmm?” Suga looked up and smiled. “They're relieved. Of course. I've been looking up some stuff on that bite of yours.”  
“Do you know what it is? Am I cursed?”  
“I don't know,” he said, peering at his screen. “I'd like to see how it behaves in full sunlight.”  
“Wait, we're going out like this?” Yachi said. “It'll look like I was bitten by a very angry animal! Or worse, like I got some weird tattoo!”  
“If it really is a shadow mark of some sort, it'll only grow stronger in the dark, Yachi” Suga said thoughtfully. “Does it hurt?”  
“Not right now,” she pouted, turning her arm to check it. “It's just sort of there. Like I can tell it's on my wrist but it's not actively stinging any more.”  
She frowned at the bruise on her skin. Depending on the angle, it looked like a big dog bite, or something more malicious, almost like a rope burn.  
It had also doubled in width since she'd gotten it, she was fairly sure.  
Suga watched her and got up. “If anyone asks, we'll say you got stuck between a door,” he said cheerfully.  
“No one will believe that, Suga-san!”  
“Then we tell them it's none of their business,” he winked. “Now come on, I'm starving.”  
They got up and walked down the stairs, through the little hall of Yachi's apartment.  
“By the way, how did you get past this hall door?” she asked.  
She'd very specifically chosen an apartment where there were several gateways to deter possible stalkers from breaking in.  
“Charmed the pants off your neighbour,” Suga shrugged.  
“They're not supposed to just let strangers in, Suga-san!” Yachi whined, but he just threw her the smile she was fairly certain he’d used on whatever neighbour had let him in. Probably Nakahara-san. She seemed like the type to get swayed by the likes of Sugawara.

 

They walked to the nearby grocery store, where they both bought overly large bento's that Suga insisted they eat in the park, on a bench in the sun.  
He talked about his strange neighbours, and his patients. Like that one little old lady that kept confusing him for her grandson, and how he didn't have the heart to keep correcting her.  
He stopped and sat back, eyeing her critically. “You have your colour back, at least,” he said, and he put his hand on her forehead again. Warmth seeped through, slower now.  
She hadn't realized how cold she must have been, how drained, only an hour ago. Right now it felt like she was nearly back to normal.  
Suga's gaze fell to her wrist. The mark had faded a little. No longer a deep purple but a slightly more natural colour, a dark brownish bruise.  
“So,” he said, “your turn. Yamaguchi-san.”  
Yachi blinked but he gave her a knowing smile. “You may as well get it over with. If you tell me the story first, I'll let you know which part you should never mention to Oikawa.”  
Smiling and a little embarrassed, she pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “It was nice,” she said. “Surprisingly so. He knows what pointillism is.”  
“Do... I... know what...”  
“Painting technique.”  
“Oh,” Suga gave a relieved little laugh.  
“We went to an exhibit and then we had cake. It was fun. He's nice, and super brave, and cute and... ugh.”  
“Well, that's good,” Suga said. “I'm glad you found someone that fits you.”  
“I'm not sure if you should be,” Yachi grumbled, “I've basically left him hanging for days. Yamaguchi-san could be-”  
“Honestly, if he's upset at you for not answering him when you were in bed and sick, he's not worth it,” Suga shook his head. “Trust me on that one.”  
Yachi smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “For coming. It's good to see you. I feel a lot better now.”  
“No problem. We still have to do some research on that mark though.”  
“When do you go back?” she asked.  
“My next shift starts tomorrow night,” Suga said, getting up and offering her a hand. “So we'd better get cracking.”  
“Oh! Speaking of work. I need a doctor's note,” she said.  
“Sadly for you, I'm a nurse, not a doctor,” he said, pulling her up.  
“Oh no I didn't mean...”  
“Maybe we can get Kuroo to do it. He forges... things.”  
“I was hoping to do this the legal way, Suga-san!”  
“Hello doctor-sama, I got bit by the shadows of night,” Suga parroted in a high pitched voice, “also I'm secretly a goddess and I slept for three days because that bite saps away at my energy like some kind of smoky leech. Can you get me a note to take off work?”  
He grinned at her, eyes twinkling.  
She pouted.  
“Kuroo it is,” he declared.

They were walking back to her apartment chattering, when Yachi briefly felt like she was being watched.  
She looked up, scanning the crowd while Suga whined about this one tv program that all the other nurses were obsessed with, something involving doctors and lots of romance.  
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except a tall blond head of hair that disappeared around a corner as she turned toward it.

 

When they arrived back at her apartment, Yachi flipped on the chat program to see that Kuroo was already waiting, sitting a little away from his camera with a stack of paper.  
“Yo! Yachi!” he said cheerfully when he saw her. “I can't believe the plan of 'throw Suga at it' worked!”  
“Please do not turn this into a common strategy,” Suga said from somewhere behind her. He dragged a chair to the desk and sat on it, thumbing through his phone.  
“So show me the thing,” Kuroo said, “Suga says you got bit.” His face was frowning a little, eyes peering seriously over his glasses.  
“It's hard to see,” Yachi mumbled, holding out her wrist to her laptop camera while she looked at the ground in embarrassment.  
“That does look pretty serious,” Kuroo hummed. “Never seen one of those before.”  
“It's cause I'm terrible,” Yachi whined. “I'm weak and I'm bad at-”  
“Also the shadows are getting stronger,” Suga noted, still looking at his phone. “I've been thinking so for a while. That probably has something to do with it. You're just unlucky you were the first that got tripped up.”  
“Alright, so do you have a plan of some sort?” Kuroo said. “How do we fix it? That's sun god stuff, yeah?”  
“Well, being outside today really did help,” Yachi said.  
“Mm, and I can make some sun water later, to wrap around it at night. I really don't want this to get any bigger than it is,” Suga said. “But if it keeps up, we're gonna need an actual sun god.”  
“... say the sun siblings.” Kuroo raised an eyebrow.  
“I mean like... a higher god. An _actual_ god. Me and Yachi are pretty minor on the power scale, we can't even forge things.”  
“Oh, right, Kuroo-san!” Yachi said. “I, uh, um, I need a doctor's note.”  
“Again,” Kuroo started, “you're sitting next to-”  
“A nurse, Kuroo...” Suga sighed. “Not a doctor. You're the forger man.”  
Kuroo huffed. “I do not forge things, thankyouverymuch.”  
Suga gave him a blank look.  
“I smooth transactions, grease the wheels of economy. I make deals,” Kuroo said. “Mostly travel stuff. I don't think I can do doctor's notes.”  
Yachi sagged. She was going to lose her job. She was going to get fired and then she'd have to live in a cardboard box an-  
“But I can probably bribe someone to do it for us,” Kuroo shrugged.

He came up to the computer and started clicking around.  
A side bar in the chat program opened.  
'Godbook' it said at the top, and there was a profile picture of Kuroo, grinning mischievously. Next to it, in bold letters: 'Kuroo Tetsurou, 32, New Zealand' and beneath that: 'Ἑρμῆς (Greek God Hermes)'.  
He opened a search bar and started looking for trickster gods in the vicinity of Kyoto.  
“Don’t you think it will heal by itself?” Yachi said, turning to Suga.  
“Hmm, I dunno. I found some notes on this one incident in 1963,” he said, showing her his phone. “There was this tiny village in northern Finland, where everyone had fallen asleep during the winter months. The majority of them died from starvation or dehydration.”  
“Oh nooo...”  
“Doctors at the time put it down to a strain of encephalitis lethargica or 'sleepy sickness', and they though the purple bruises on the victims were just the result of them falling or bumping into things. The few people that survived were cured by a foreign doctor that came by in spring. Javier Velasquez. Pretty sure he was Ra? Do you know Kuroo?”  
“I'd have to look it up, but probably something like that, yeah.” Kuroo said. He was peering at his screen, focussing on a chat conversation he was having with someone that had popped up.  
'Shirofuku _Yukie_ – Azeban (Abenaki god Azeban)'.  
It seemed like they were bartering over tickets to Hawaii.

Yachi looked at her arm again. If they wanted a major sun god they'd have to get Oikawa or something. Probably.  
The power classification of ancient gods wasn't an exact science. To be honest, it wasn't even anything she could legitimately call a science.  
As far as she could tell, whoever was worshipped as more powerful back in the day, was still, in a modern incarnation, somewhat more powerful. For her house that would be the big name ones, like Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, Apollo. For the Egyptians probably something like Ra, Osiris, Isis, Horus. For the Japanese, Amaterasu. That sort of thing.  
Sun gods were usually pretty high up, but they weren't the only sun themed deities.  
Yachi herself, as Eos, was pretty low on the ranking and honestly, that suited her just fine.  
With great power comes great responsibility and all that. She wasn't sure if she would be able to handle it. She had enough trouble as it was.  
As far as she could tell, the only power granted to her as the Goddess of Sunrise was that she always looked rosy and fresh-faced, no matter how terrible she felt. Not the most fancy power, but considering how little she slept, it came in handy now and then.  
Suga's Helios was a bit more powerful, and that seemed to give him some cool powers, like storing sunlight in spring water.  
He got up. “Right, I'm going to need a jar or something.”  
They walked into her tiny kitchen, where he unpacked a bottle they'd gotten at the convenience store. 'Pure spring water', it said on the label. There was even a picture of a snow covered mountain.  
“Give me a minute?” he said. “I feel very pressured when people are watching.”  
“Oh, of course.”

Yachi walked back out and to the computer.  
“Here's the deal,” Kuroo said as soon as he saw her walk into view. “I got Yukie to forge you a doctor's note.”  
“Oh wow. Thank you Kuroo-san!”  
“She works in a gas station a few miles north of Kyoto, the address is right there in the chat. She'll have it ready by tomorrow noon.”  
“Uh, alright...” Yachi said.  
Kuroo brought up his hands for emphasis. “Now this is very important,” he said. “You are dealing with a trickster god. Remember that.”  
She nodded mutely.  
“And not a heroically friendly one like yours truly, but like... an unknown agent.”  
Yachi tilted her head.  
“If you want to appease her, bring food,” he said. “Don't buy anything, and don't let her rope you into paying for this note or whatever. I'm getting her first class tickets to Hawaii, and a full expenses paid hotel for a week. That is way more than a forged note is worth, ok?”  
“Right.”  
“Ok, now I have to go make dinner,” he said. “See ya later.”  
His tile went black and Yachi sat, reading the conversation he'd had with Yukie.  
A thought struck and she clicked open her browser.

  
'Godbook. Yachi Hitoka, 25, Japan'. And beneath that: Ἠώς (Greek Goddess Eos).  
The site existed because of Kuroo.  
Something about being the messenger of the gods, with better things to do than travelling around the globe delivering letters for a bunch of random people. He'd come up with the social network nearly fifteen years ago, and built it together with his programmer friend.  
It was heavily encrypted, and supported dozens of long dead languages, but other than that it looked just like other social network sites. It had a news feed, chat, and a friends list.  
Yachi's had Suga-san, Shimizu-senpai, and of course Kuroo-san and Oikawa-san. It was pretty small, she realized. Certainly when compared to Kuroo, who probably knew every single modern incarnation of a deity.  
Maybe she could befriend this Yukie person, she thought, as she opened the search bar.  
‘Azeban’.  
Yukie was 36 and sort of friendly looking. She had reddish-brown hair and she kinda resembled a chipmunk. She’d listed ‘food’ as her only interest.  
Yachi’s mouse hovered over the ‘Connect’ button, but she decided she should probably meet this woman first.  
Her mind wandered again to her mark, and she opened the search bar again.  
'Major sun gods'.  
There were a few. Oikawa, of course, but he was probably halfway across the globe.  
So she went through the list of names that popped up.  
Aboriginal Solar Goddess Wala was, by the looks of it, a middle aged lawyer in Peru, but she hadn't been online since January.  
Nanahuatzin, the current Aztec god of the sun,apparently lived in New Jersey but hadn't logged on since some time last year.  
Yachi frowned and continued.  
Xihe, the Chinese sun goddess and mother of the ten suns, turned out to be a South Korean actress that she actually recognized from a k-drama. She sat, silently star-struck for a moment, before clicking away.  
Surya, Indian sun god, was the owner of a large hotel chain in Senegal. His profile picture had him posing in front of an outdoor pool, cocktail in hand. He'd been online last week, but was probably about as far away Oikawa.

Further down the list, she also found some greyed out profiles. The Aztec god Tonatiuh, a South African lady, had been confirmed dead about a year ago. There probably wouldn't be a new Tonatiuh for at least twelve years.  
That's how it seemed to work, at least. Or how Yachi understood it.  
A god died, and the incarnation went to someone else being born at that time. Their powers wouldn't manifest until puberty and sometimes, depending on education, religion or other circumstances, they would be suppressed sufficiently that they never manifested at all.  
Even more tragic, the kid could die young and the cycle would start over. It could be decades before a god popped up again.  
Sometimes, these new gods lived their entire lives never figuring out why they were like this, never finding anyone like themselves.  
This seemed to Yachi to be a rather sad fate. She could only imagine how scary it must be, being like a death god and seeing ghosts everywhere, but not knowing why.

That seemed to happen less now that people were more mobile, though.  
The amount of gods that had managed to join Godbook was startlingly large.  
One of the more bookish gods had even built a probability model for gods meeting by chance, and Kuroo had very excitedly tacked it to the home page a few months ago.  
The study itself made Yachi's head hurt but it came down to this: incarnations of similar gods had a statistically high chance of randomly bumping into each other.  
Somehow.  
Gods of the same pantheon, or of the same domain, were almost supernaturally drawn to each other, it seemed.  
They'd randomly meet. In airports, at business conferences, in chat rooms and message boards.  
Considering the number of humans alive, and the probability of meeting, out of that set of billions, a specific person from a specific subset ranging in the hundreds of members, the model had stated that the chance of two gods meeting should be a number with a lot of zeros after the dot.  
But in reality is was almost common. Or at least not as rare as it should be.  
The probability study stated, near the very end: “God stuff, I guess.”  
And that seemed to be the conclusion. God incarnations had an uncanny, god-like ability to meet each other, especially if they were related.  
It was this little quirk of nature that had allowed Shimizu to find Yachi, and that seemed to bind her to her brother and assorted extended family.  
It was the same ability, and a bit of elbow grease, that populated Godbook. So far there were several hundred current gods.  
And because Kuroo was easily talked into adding features, it also contained dead gods and other research.  
Nabu, some kind of librarian god with a knack for finding exactly the document he needed, had been scanning large swaths of the world’s libraries for ‘god stuff’. Ancient diaries, notes and studies from previous incarnations. But also reports of events that could be interpreted as godly, such as the village in Finland that got attacked by shadows. It was this research that had added the entries at the bottom of the list, marked in blue.

 

  * Sol, Norse goddess of the sun – Last identified incarnation was a French soldier that died in World War 1.
  * Ra, Egyptian Sun God – No known incarnations. The last one that was assumed to hold his powers was a man known as Javier Velasquez, a wandering doctor and possible grifter of unknown origin. It was unclear if Velasquez was still alive.
  * Amaterasu, Japanese goddess of the sun – No modern incarnations were known, but reports did speak of a young woman whose very presence made the shadows slink away wherever she walked. She served as a shrine maiden at the Ise Grand Shrine in the 18  th  century and died there in some undisclosed incident, together with most of the shrine staff.



 

“All done,” Suga said.  
He walked into the room with a cleaned out jam jar full of water and a thermos.  
“This should last you a little while. Like two weeks probably.”  
He shook the jar and a faint glow seemed to come from it. “Keep this stashed away somewhere and dip your bandage in it before bed. Should get your mark some sunlight even at night.”  
Yachi nodded. “Thank you. I'll put them in the bathroom.”  
“You know. I've been thinking,” Suga said while she stuffed the jar into her medicine cabinet. “I want you to take me to the place.”  
“Hmmm?” She poked her head out of the bathroom.  
“Where you lost your broom. I want to go there with you tomorrow. At sunrise. To get it back.”  
“What? No! Nonononono,” Yachi said, panicking. The very thought of going back there was bad enough. “I'm unarmed! And weak!”  
“You won't be alone,” Suga pointed out. “Besides,” he picked up a small flat broom she used to keep her room clean, “you have this.”  
“It's not the same, Suga-san,” she whined.  
“We have to show them who's boss, Yachi,” Suga insisted. “Don't worry, we'll be a-ok.”  
He winked and gave her a thumbs up.  
Yachi deflated. “Won't it be all corrupted and stuff?”  
“I haven't got a clue.”  
She pouted at him.  
“But that's why we have to get it back,” he said, flashing her a smile. “Research.”

 


	7. An Unforeseen Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things go wrong again (and Suga is cool)

Tsukishima Kei was many things.   
Tall, blond, reasonably smart. Music lover, too.  
He was mildly interested in the Jurassic era, but not enough to go against the wishes of his parents when they had told him that 'dinosaur expert' was not a viable job prospect.   
So he was a computer scientist.   
Bit of an asshole, too, apparently. Plenty of people had told him this, at least. Most prominently several of the girls, and two of the guys, who had confessed to him during high school and university.   
He'd turned each of them down, of course. Honestly, who needs that kind of complexity in life?   
As a result he was also perpetually single though he never thought of it as such.

But there was one more thing about Tsukishima Kei that few people were aware of.   
He was extremely protective of Yamaguchi.   
That guy was his oldest friend and one of the few people that seemed to really get him. But Yamaguchi was also a little too innocent and, in sharp contrast to Tsukishima, entirely too quick to fall head over heels for people.   
Tsukishima had found that out during several episodes where Yamaguchi had confessed to someone, only to be bluntly put down, and during the few _excruciating_ spells in high school and university where the guy had been dating someone.   
Two weeks, three months, six days and then nine entire months, to be specific.   
The first one had been ditzy, the second one manipulative, the third one was ok, Tsukishima guessed, but still in love with her ex.   
The last one.... Tsukishima had _hated_ the last one. For nine whole months he had held his tongue until she predictably stomped on Yamaguchi's heart by dumping him to date some singer or other.   
He wasn't even a good singer.   
His band's riffs were bland at best and Tsukishima could tell the audio on his tracks was auto-tuned.   
Either way, the last one had thoroughly crushed Yamaguchi in a way the guy had not seen coming.  
So it wasn't without precedent, Tsukishima told himself, that he was... wary of this Yachi girl.  
She seemed nice enough, of course, but what nice girl crashes her bike and then doesn't text for three straight days?   
What sort of person is then spotted, looking totally fine apart from a few scrapes, hanging out in a park with another man she seems very close to?  
What woman, furthermore, gets up at god-knows-when to hang out at a temple? She wasn't a shrine maiden. Surely she'd have told Yamaguchi that. It seemed like an important thing to mention, you know, when dating. What sort of shrine maiden wouldn't tell the boy she was dating about the shrine maiden part.   
Tsukishima couldn't usually care less, of course, but with all the fishy stuff going on, that whole deal just seemed, well, suspicious.   
Yamaguchi had obviously waved any worries he may have had away, pleased to just get an apologetic text from her, but the man had already proven himself a complete fool when in love. 

Also. Tsukishima was starting to feel flabby.   
This played a very big part, he told himself, into his reasoning for jogging through a quiet neighbourhood on the outskirts of town at four in the morning.   
His run took him, purely coincidentally, to the steps of the small temple Kageyama had told him about. He checked his clock. Nearly half past four.   
He took a small stop to stretch and looked around.  
No one was here.   
Hmmm, time for stair cardio.   
Tsukishima climbed the steps, jogging up them two at a time. He reached the top and stopped to gather his breath.   
Nothing.  
He stretched and made to go back, when he heard whispering voices below.  
“It'll be fine,” a male voice said soothingly. “It's just like every morning, only now you have back-up.”  
Frowning, Tsukishima peered down the steps. It was her and that pretty man she hung out with. They turned into the forest right before the Shoji gate.   
Silently, Tsukishima followed.

 

* * *

 

“It's right down here,” Yachi Hitoka said, leading her friend down the little path through the bushes.   
“Wow Yachi, it's very dark in here,” Suga noted, pulling a small vial out of his pocket.   
“Yeah I only came here because someone was on the temple square and I needed to find a place quickly,” Yachi said, while next to her Suga downed the vial, “It's super scary.”  
Suga nodded and quickly rubbed down the length of his arms, like he was trying to rub heat back into his limbs on a cold November day.   
What happened instead, was that his skin lit up with a soft golden glow.  
“Better?” he asked a quivering Yachi. “I'm a living night light.”  
He winked at her and she smiled. “The clearing is just up ahead.”  
They walked on to find the place much as she left it. A few broken branches, but nothing else to indicate that Yachi had fought the forces of darkness here, and had rather dramatically lost.  
Nothing, really, but a rather queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.   
“Shall we make a circle?” she said.  
Suga, glowing faintly next to her, nodded. “Let's make a double one, big enough for the both of us.”  
Yachi got to work while Suga searched around the bushes near the clearing. She swept a circle that took up almost half of the open space, more than enough to fit two minor gods. It glowed with a quick flash when she finished it.  
“Like this?” she asked.  
“Awesome,” Suga said, holding out his hand. “Let me in?”  
She took his fingers and pulled him over the threshold. He stopped just short of the line and picked a deck of cards out of his shirt pocket. With a skill that was awe inspiring to look at, he shuffled the deck, flourishing the cards through the air like some kind of magician. He finally grabbed the pack in one hand and dealt the cards, swiftly sending them around him as they landed perfectly on top of Yachi's sweeping. The last card dropped before his feet and the cards lit up, forming their own protective circle.  
“Wow, you're so cool!” Yachi muttered. “I didn't know you could fight with cards.”  
“Didn’t Shimizu tell you?” Suga said, “You can fight with anything that's an extension of yourself. I'm pretty sure Oikawa uses a camera flash. I vaguely recall him mentioning it.”

Yachi pondered for a moment, clutching her broom.  
In the woods around them, shadows were gathering, and she was starting to feel sick.  
“Deep breaths Yachi,” Suga said next to her. “Keep breathing. I'm right here. You've done this hundreds of times before. It's gonna be ok.”  
A flash of golden light, shaped like a playing card, shot out of his hand and cut through a growing shade across the clearing.  
“I'll take this side,” Yachi said, pulling up her shoulders as she stood back to back with her brother.   
“Good plan”, Suga said, and she could hear the grin in his voice.   
Swallowing heavily, she grabbed her broom and stabbed a patch of darkness coming her way. It dispersed with a hiss.   
Having someone literally at her back emboldened her and slowly, she managed to get back into a rhythm. She slashed, she swept, she felt the fear drain from her as the broom quickly dispersed lifeless blobs of black. Suga was right, of course. She'd done this hundreds of times before, and it had almost always worked out.   
Almost.  
The mark on her wrist stung, hidden as it was under sun drenched bandages, but it did not stop her from doing her job. Things were going decidedly well, even, until she was suddenly aware of a rustling in the trees.   
There was a yelp, and a surprised voice cursing.  
Behind her, Suga stiffened. “Is someone there?”  
“What the-” the voice said, and Yachi could see a tall blond man, surrounded by inky black shadows. They were circling him, like a pack of hyena's testing a wounded gazelle.  
Tentatively, a coil reached out from a branch near his head.   
A card shot out, cutting it down.  
The boy blinked and turned to Suga and Yachi. “What is this?” he asked, voice way calmer than it had any right to be.  
“Tsukishima-san?”  
“You _know_ that guy?” Suga said, exasperated. He'd turned back to the front, where he was shooting a massive shadow with a handful of cards, cutting it down just enough that it deflated.  
“Tsukishima-san, I'm sorry but you should really not stay here. It isn't safe,” Yachi shouted.  
Around the barista, the shadows were getting restless. His eyes grew wide and he took a step towards Yachi. The shadows coiled, whispering and chanting, growing higher as they gathered around their prey.

“Suga-san!” Yachi could only point as a towering shadow rose behind Tsukishima, ready to pounce.  
Suga turned, pulled something from his pocket and threw it.   
A small glass jar flew through the air, forming a perfect, glittering arc before it cracked open at Tsukishima's feet. Softly shimmering water splashed on the ground, eating away at shadows as they slunk back with a high pitched screech.  
“Get over here!” Suga yelled.   
“What the hell is going on?” Tsukishima tried, but he backed away from the shadows coming around to circle him again.  
“They'll hurt you!” Yachi yelled. “Please, come in here!”  
She jabbed at a dripping silhouette, clearing the path for Tsukishima to come.   
The man took a few tentative steps forward. He took in the view of the circle, of the coiling darkness, of Suga throwing cards around, of Yachi wielding a small plastic broom, and stopped.  
“This is insane,” he said, blinking.  
“Tsukishima-san, please!” Yachi said. She could feel something amiss. The same way she'd felt before. Something stronger, deeper than the regular crowd was here.   
She flicked her broom, knocking down a few figures as she focused on the night swirling around her like a storm beaten sea.   
There it was. The bad one. The strong one. Just behind Tsukishima.   
Less than a meter from him, even.   
It stood quietly, menacingly, singing a deep and guttural song as it undulated in the dark.   
And in the very middle of it, where Yachi could imagine its chest to be, if these things had anything remotely like an anatomy, was a mangled piece of teal plastic. 

Her broom had melted. That was the only way to describe it. It was blackened and deformed, crushed and bent into a shape that was nowhere near its origin.  
Slowly, the Bad One formed an appendage and extended it toward Tsukishima.  
Suga threw a card at it and it quivered, slowed a little, but was not deterred.   
“Oh gods, Tsukishima-san, please.”  
The boy turned, stared at the black thing coming closer by the second.  
He wasn't moving. Why wasn't he moving? He was so close!  
Yachi took deep breath.   
“Cover me!” she yelled at Suga.  
“Wha?”  
And with that she planted one foot firmly just inside the circle, and reached out.  
The chorus of shadow shrieked in joy the moment she set foot outside, startling Tsukishima just enough that he turned back, away from the creature, and stumbled just a little closer.  
Yachi grabbed his arm, building on the momentum of confusion now very present in the blond man, and pulled him inside.   
The oozing darkness, adorned with its broken plastic crown, shot after him and crashed into the walls of the circle, wailing. It howled like a wolf at the moon and Tsukishima scrabbled away from the walls, face white and rigid.  
A jar of water came sailing by and crashed into the shadow, leaving a melting, smoking crater in the mound of black.  
“Tsukishima-san, are you ok? Are you hurt?”  
Yachi crouched next to a very quiet Tsukishima.  
“I... what the hell,” he managed to croak.  
“Focus, Yachi!” Suga yelled, throwing cards at a gathering storm of dark.  
“Please sit for a minute,” Yachi said and she got up, grabbing her broom again.  
When she turned back to the shadows, the bad one seemed to have fled, making room for an army of little ones.   
The sky paled in the east, turning a lighter shade of blue, the first brushes of white and yellow and pink just minutes away.   
Yachi took her broom, and she swept.

 

Slowly, by the turning of the light, the shadows retreated and faded away, back into the forest where they'd come from. Yachi flopped onto the forest floor in relief.   
Behind her, Suga was examining Tsukishima.  
“Did they grab you anywhere? Are you hurt?”  
“I'm just fine,” Tsukishima said, standing up. He looked very embarrassed, a mixture of anger and pure confusion contorting his face.  
“Tsukishima-san what are you doing here?” Yachi asked. “Don't you have work in a bit?”  
“Did you... follow us?” Suga added, squinting.  
Tsukishima pushed up his glasses, mute.  
“You did, didn't you? Who the hell are you?”  
“She's dating my friend!” he said, pointing furiously at Yachi. “But she's also dating you, apparently.”  
He huffed and Yachi's eyes went wide.  
“Ohhh. Oh Tsukishima-san it's not like that at all. You don't understand. He's my brother. Sort of.”  
“And gay,” Suga said. “Very, very gay, in fact. Not that it's any of your business,” he added when he noticed the frown on Tsukishima's face. “But still, not a great excuse to start stalking people.”   
“You mean to tell me what you're doing here isn't suspicious? What the hell were those things? Who are you people...  _What_ are you?”  
Suga opened and closed his mouth, seemingly looking for divine inspiration.  
“We're, uh, gods,” Yachi stammered. “It's our job to, uh, fight back the night so that the shadows don't take over the world. It's... it's complicated and possibly symbolic but it's a thing we have to do.”  
Suga gave her a betrayed look and Tsukishima scrunched up his face.  
“That's the best you could come up with?” he said, snorting. “I've never heard such a ridiculous story.”  
“Well how would you explain this particular situation?” Suga asked.   
“Special effects, cosplay, natural phenomena, delusions, possibly a dream I'm yet to wake up from.”  
Rolling his eyes, Suga reached out and poked Tsukishima's cheek.  
“Ow.”  
Suga raised his eyebrows and folded his arms, smirking.  
“Fine, so not a dream.”  
“Tsukishima-san, I realize this is a bit much to take in, but we are telling the truth.”  
Tsukishima sighed. “Sure.”  
“Right, so now that we've established that you were stalking us for no reason, and that we saved your life,” Suga said, tilting his head and smiling pleasantly, “I have one request for you.”  
Tsukishima squinted at him.  
“You are to tell no one about what you saw here.”  
“Excuse me?”  
“No one,” Suga repeated.  
Tsukishima drew himself up to his full height, which was quite a bit taller than Suga, and gave him a cold, dark smile.   
“You want me to not tell Yamaguchi he's dating a crazy girl that hangs around forests at night with strange men?”  
“Gay men,” Suga stressed.  
“Good luck with that,” Tsukishima said, and he turned, hesitating only a little before he strode out of the circle and down the forest path.  
“Wait! Tsukishima-san! What are you going to do?” Yachi yelled, trying to keep up.  
“I'm going to warn him, of course,” Tsukishima said, voice droning almost without emotion as he kept walking, back to the temple staircase.  
“Please, Tsukishima-san,” Yachi said, out of breath from running after him. “I know what this looks like, and I know you must be worried, but I really like Yamaguchi-san. I got bitten by one of those shadow things, and that's why I couldn't talk to him for days and I'm really sorry but-”  
Abruptly, Tsukishima stopped and turned, causing her to run into him.   
He looked down at her, face serious.  
“You're not normal,” he said.  
Yachi's face flashed bright red. “I'm... not. No. I'm... aware that I probably don't... um, deserve-”  
“Were you going to tell him?”  
Yachi blinked and fiddled with her hands. “I was, I will, when... if we were to reach that hurdle, yes. Of course. He deserves to know.”  
“What hurdle.”  
“Huh?”  
“When you reach what hurdle, exactly,” Tsukishima said, voice cold as the dead of night.  
“I don't know? A few dates? More than one. When... If we were getting serious. I don't know! I'm not good at dating!”  
“So,” Tsukishima said, sneering, “you're practising dating with Yamaguchi, and you were maybe eventually going to tell him about your weird as hell hobby after he's already spent all that time and energy, and gotten his hopes up over you?”  
“That's not...” Yachi stammered. “That's not what I mean at all.”  
“Goodbye.”   
Tsukishima turned around again and set off down the path, jogging.   
He reached the temple steps long before Yachi could ever catch up to him.   
She bent double, trying to catch her breath while simultaneously keeping her tears down.   
“That went bad, huh,” Suga said softly, coming up.   
“It's over. It's all over. I should move somewhere to a mountain and live my life as an old hag with fifteen cats and twenty chickens and die alone.”  
“That doesn't sound too bad, actually,” Suga said, giving her a soft pat on the shoulder while he fished his phone out of his backpack.   
Leaning against a tree, he dialled.   
« Hey, it's Suga. You awake? » he said when the other end picked up.  « Of course you are. I have a huge and very important favour to ask. Do you know Cassandra of Troy? »

 

* * *

 

Tsukishima Kei jogged back to his house with a head that felt like a flock of seagulls had descended on it: loud, messy and in utter chaos.   
This had been a ridiculous morning. What a ridiculous day.   
He put on his headphones and blasted loud psychedelic funk though his ears in an effort to diffuse the weird, lingering feeling of 'what the hell'.   
It didn't work.   
He'd seen things that couldn't possibly be real. His eyes and his brain had told him that shadows don't move like that, that they don't hiss and whisper and scream, and that they certainly don't slink away when hit with a small plastic broom.   
But his body and every instinct residing in it had told him to run.   
That much was certain. Yachi pulling him into that circle, into 'safety', had felt like a huge relief.   
But it couldn't possibly be real.   
These people were nuts, and Yamaguchi should probably know that he was dating a mentally unbalanced person.   
He jogged along, trying to forget the images littering his thoughts. And the sounds. Definitely the sounds. But even psychedelic funk at slightly too high volumes was not enough to drown out the memory of the shadows…singing. Or talking? Maybe? Whispering. Whatever it was.  
He forced himself to hum along with the song while he came upon an intersection and looked both ways before crossing the little roundabout.   
Briefly, almost imperceptibly, the outer circle of the road glowed.   
Tsukishima frowned.   
His imagination was really getting to him now.   
Shaking his head, he picked up the pace and ran on.

 


	8. Into the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yachi goes on an adventure

_Today: 08:06:  
From: _ _**Yachi H** _ _:_  
"Good morning Yamaguchi-san! I hope you have a great day, they're predicting lots of sun. I should be back in shape by Monday."

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi smiled and put away his phone. He checked the clock. He was going to wait for ten more minutes before texting her back.  
He seemed to vaguely recall that there was a rule to these things.  
His mood had lifted considerably since yesterday. There was a weird part where he'd been mortified at hearing that Yachi did in fact have an accident, but at the same time maybe secretly a little relieved that she'd had a good excuse not to text him, because it meant that it hadn't been just him messing up a date.  
And then he'd felt terrible for being relieved.  
But _then_ she'd messaged him saying she was ok, and he could go back to full relief.  
They'd chatted a little in the evening, and now things certainly felt like they were going well, seeing as she was sending him good morning texts.  
Ah screw it, he was just going to answer now.

 

_Today: 08:08:  
From: _ _**Yamaguchi T.** _ _:_  
"Good morning. I'm glad to hear that! I'll think of something nice for Monday's special. Have a good day!"

 

He thought for a moment. Too eager, maybe? She hadn't said anything about coming by Monday, it was just sort of implied. He frowned, reading the message over again, when Tsukki 's face appeared over the hatch.   
“One stack of pancakes for Fukuzawa-san,” he droned.  
Yamaguchi startled, clicked 'Send' and went to work.  
He could almost feel the mild disappointment oozing through the wall while he poured batter onto the hot plate. In the shop, Tsukki was loudly making coffee.  
“Hey Tsukki,” he said casually when the whirring stopped, “wanna go to Shimogyo Ward this afternoon?”  
Tsukki's head leaned back into view. “Hmmm?”  
“I wanna look at t-shirts, and I know you've been thinking about record players again.”  
“I don't have money for a record player, Yamaguchi.”  
“Second hand? Besides, it can't hurt to look,” Yamaguchi grinned at him.  
“I suppose.”  
The shop bell tinkled and Tsukki disappeared again. He'd been acting a bit weird since that morning.  
Yamaguchi wondered if it was the Yachi thing. Tsukki tended to be weary of most of the girls Yamaguchi dated, like some overprotective matron. He was fairly certain that Tsukki had disliked his last girlfriend, for instance, though he'd never said a word about it.  
Then again, Tsukki was the one who had to deal with a heart-broken Yamaguchi whenever things went wrong, and that was probably super annoying.  
He just hoped that Yachi would grow on him.

 

* * *

 

Yachi Hitoka accompanied her brother to the train station, where they had breakfast together.  
“Ok, so you have enough of that stuff to last you a few weeks if you’re careful,” Suga was saying. “We’ll keep an eye on it to see if it really is fading, otherwise we may have to call in Oikawa.”  
Yachi nodded. “Yes. Ok.”  
“And I think you should consider finding a new place,” he went on. “That big thing was not a normal shadow and if it resides in the temple forest, maybe just move to your apartment basement or something.”  
She considered it, and the possibility of one of her neighbours finding her there.  
“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” she said. “Where do you, uh, fight, Suga-san?”  
He shrugged. “Anywhere, really. Hospital basement mostly, when I’m working. There’s a storage room with a window facing east.”  
“Wow.”  
“Just… please go and look for one. Don’t go back there. And if you don’t feel a hundred percent, just don’t go at all. At least until we figure out what that big one is that took your broom.”  
“I’d feel really bad about leaving that whole thing to you guys,” she stammered.  
“We’d all feel a lot worse if you got hurt, Yachi.”  
She looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry. If I wasn’t so weak- Ow!”  
Suga leaned over the table and flicked her forehead. “Stop that.”  
She rubbed her skin, mild shock on her face.  
“They’re getting stronger,” Suga said. “You think I haven’t noticed that? This has little to do with you. I don’t even know what that big one _is._ We’ll need to do some research, ask other people’s experience. Ok?”  
She nodded mournfully.  
“Alright, good. I’m going back home to try to catch some sleep before my shift tonight. Just be careful ok?” he said, gaze going from stern to soft. “If you do go out, take some vials as back-up. Use them as molotovs if you have to. I don’t mind sending you more. Promise?”  
“I promise…”  
“Excellent!”  
With that, he patted her, slightly too hard, on the shoulder and got up.  
She waved him off as he stepped onto the train and walked out of the station, feeling a little more drained now that Suga wasn’t there with her.  
Yachi took a deep breath. “Be strong,” she told herself.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked over to the bus station and got on the first bus heading north. The trip to Azeban was going to be a bit of a mess. Judging by the address Kuroo had given her, the gas station she worked at was a few kilometres outside of the actual urban centre of Kyoto, on a stretch of road with not much else but the occasional temple or rest stop.   
Getting there required three bus changes, but she had the time, at least.  
It was a nice day, blue sky with a few light grey clouds in it. Enough sunlight to keep her awake, certainly.  
She sat on the bus, holding her wrist to the glass, and studied her mark.  
In sunlight, it was almost invisible, only there as a sort of imprint, like someone who’d always worn a wrist watch and had now left it at home. It felt mildly wrong, a little heavy.  
At least it didn’t hurt any more.  
She changed buses in the northern part of town, waiting on a little bench next to a park.  
She breathed deeply, smiling to herself while she watched the squirrels hop around nearby. One of them came a little closer, twitchy little ears turning to the wind.  
“You’re a brave one,” Yachi said.  
The little animal scuttled off, only to come back a few minutes later, tilting its tiny head.  
“Are you trying to get a treat?”  
She did bring food, Yachi remembered. Maybe it could smell it or something.  
So she opened her backpack and fished around in it, until she found a small grain bar with nuts. Pulling off little pieces, she threw them at the squirrel. It grabbed the parcels and shoved them into its mouth before running off as soon as her bus came in sight.  
“Well. Bye bye, little squirrel.”

On the second stretch of her journey, Yachi looked outside of the window and thought about Yamaguchi-san. If Tsukishima had told him anything, he wasn’t letting it on. Not yet at least.   
Their chat messages that morning hadn’t been any different than usual.  
She wondered how angry Tsukishima-san was. Or perhaps how upset.  
Should she… call him? Ask him if he was ok?  
Was she strong enough to deal with his snark?  
Her bus pulled up on the side of a busy street and she sat on the little bench in the baking heat, waiting for her connection.  
Next to her, a dog lay panting. She tilted her head at it and it looked up mournfully.  
“You look thirsty,” Yachi said.  
The dog tentatively wagged its tail.  
“Would you like some water?”  
Wag, wag, wag.  
She looked around and picked up a discarded pudding cup, filling it with some of her water. She sat back and was watching the dog happily lap it up, when her bus finally arrived.  
“Bye bye, puppy,” she said, but the creature was already gone.  
Weird.

Her last bus change happened on the outskirts of the city, at the bottom of a hill with one of the city’s many shrines on it. She stood in the shade of a Shoji gate and hummed to herself, trying to think of excuses to tell her professor when she finally went back to work.  
Maybe she should just take this time to get some progress on her thesis, she thought.  
She still felt drained, but it was at this point barely different than her normal state of perpetual tiredness. Surely with some coffee she could plough through.  
A chittering sound made her look up.  
In a nearby bush, just out of reach, sat a tanuki. Yachi frowned and looked around.  
This was starting to feel like some kind of test.  
The creature chittered again. What did tanuki even eat?  
She looked around in her bag and finally decided on an apple. Crouching down, she carefully rolled it toward the animal. Grabby little hands took the fruit and the creature disappeared.  
A moment later her bus arrived.

 

The bus dropped her at her final stop, on a stretch of road with not much more than a few discarded stores. The gas station should be just around the corner. She walked past an office building, a run-down convenience store and a broken-down factory of sorts and rounded the corner to find her target: an abandoned gas station.   
Wait.  
Kuroo had said nothing about it being abandoned. He’d said she was a gas attendant there.  
Heart dropping, she approached the sad looking building.  
Several of the windows were broken. Paint peeled from a panel with gas prices. The awning above the pumps creaked ominously in what little wind there was.  
“Um. Hello?” she squeaked, very much aware of the fact that no one would be able to hear her, even if they were right there.  
Be strong.  
She carefully walked around the back, checking through the window. Maybe Yukie still lived there or something. Maybe she’d left a note.  
Yachi stood on tiptoe to peek through the back window and startled when she heard a rustling in the tree behind her.  
Swallowing thickly, she slowly turned around. A squirrel came climbing down the trunk and tilted its head at her, before running off into the thicket behind the building.

Ok, no one had told her about this sort of thing.   
This had not been the plan.  
But she did not come all this way to not get her forged doctor’s note.  
She was already halfway down the path to crime, no turning back now.  
Whining, she followed the squirrel into the trees.  
The thicket was cooler at least, high trees dappling light shade across the ground. It was airy and light, nothing like the forest from that morning.  
Once inside, the thicket also looked quite big, now that she thought about it. More like a wood, really.  
Blinking, she looked behind her. The gas station was still right there.  
Of course it was, she told herself, why wouldn’t it be?  
Turning back, however, she found that the squirrel had long since gone.  
She took a few steps and stopped. “Uh, hello? Yukie-san?”  
Wind rustled the trees, a bird shouted somewhere to her right, but otherwise it was very quiet here.  
“I’m going back,” Yachi said.  
A dog barked. It sounded fairly close.  
Heart beating in her throat, she followed the sound.  
She could just see the headlines now, somewhere on page 14 of the newspaper, ‘Local girl gets lost in forest, dies horribly’.  
The dog barked again and she stepped through the thicket until she found what looked like a hiking trail.

Yachi was not dressed for hiking.   
She was dressed to go to a gas station and pick up a piece of paper.  
She mentally made a tally of her backpack. Water, some rice balls and assorted snacks, jacket.  
It was nearly four in the afternoon, too.  
She wavered. She was probably going to die wandering the woods alone, but on the other hand, she really needed that note.  
Fine.  
Yachi set off down the trail and followed it deeper into the forest for another twenty minutes, until she spotted a tanuki sitting on the side of the road.  
“Hello little guy,” she said, and it skittered off into the bushes to the left. Sighing, she followed.

“Wow.”   
Yachi emerged from the woods into a large clearing.  
A very pretty clearing. The field was full of wild flowers, reds and blues and yellows and whites and oranges. She smiled. This felt almost like a dream.  
Somewhere in the middle she could see the outline of a human figure.  
Carefully, she walked up to it.  
The girl lay spread eagled in the flowers, wide smile on her face.  
“Yukie-san?”  
“Hi! You must be Yachi,” she said, sitting up. “Lovely day, isn’t it? What did you bring me?”  
Silently, Yachi pulled a few rice balls out of her backpack.  
“Ooooh!” Yukie happily stuffed three into her mouth at once, cheeks puffing like she was some kind of hamster.  
“So. What brings you all the way out here?” she asked, swallowing the whole thing down.  
“I came for my note,” Yachi said, probably slightly ruder than necessary. This person was messing with her, she was fairly sure.  
“Right, right.” Yukie pulled a small envelope out of her back pocket and held it out.  
“Thank you,” Yachi said.  
She reached for it, only to have it snatched away.  
“That’ll be 5.000 yen,” Yukie smiled.  
Yachi froze, anger and hurt and sheer disbelief clashing in her face.  
“N-no,” she said, pulling herself up, “Kuroo-san paid for this. He paid a lot.”  
Yukie seemed to ponder for a moment, before she shrugged and handed over the note. “Worth a shot,” she said.  
Yachi frowned. This was turning out to be a very long day.  
“Yukie-san, can I ask you a question?”  
“Hmmm?”  
“Why go through all this trouble?” Yachi asked. She gestured vaguely at the surroundings  
“Why? It’s a nice day,” Yukie laughed. “Sometimes you gotta stop to smell the roses, you know. Or, in my case, lay around in a field of flowers. My boss is never going to notice I closed shop for a bit.”  
“Wait, what?”  
“What?”  
“It’s not an abandoned gas station?”  
Yukie grinned. “Why would I work at an abandoned gas station? That makes no sense.”  
“I… you… the animals?”  
“What animals?” Yukie's eyes were big, innocent and mildly confused.  
Yachi blinked. “Oh.”  
Yukie sniggered. “You’re weird, Yachi-san!”  
She got back up, and patted the dirt from her butt. “Anyway, I’d love to lie here and chat, but I should get back to work. Besides, your bus should be arriving in a few minutes. I’ll walk ya.”  
They set off further down the field and slipped trough the trees to reach a small stretch of concrete.  
It was a gas station.  
A shiny, clean, modern and very much not abandoned gas station.  
With new windows and a magazine stand and a sale on lemon soda.  
It had one of those signs on the door. The cute ones that said 'Sorry, we're closed!' in swirly lettering.  
Yukie waved and headed inside, where she flipped it to 'We're open!'.  
Yachi walked up to the bus stop, still not really sure what had just happened.  
Her bus arrived a few moments later.  
It took her straight to the central bus station.

 

* * *

 

Tsukishima Kei sat on a park bench, staring at his can of iced coffee. Next to him, Yamaguchi was rifling though his haul of novelty t-shirts. He smiled encouragingly. He had probably long since realized something was amiss, and now he was expecting Tsukishima to spill. Or something.   
Tsukishima sighed.  
“Yamaguchi,” he said.  
“Yes Tsukki?”  
Tsukishima pondered. How exactly do you tell your best friend that his crush is a goddess, or at the very least some strange shadow battle warrior... thing.  
He glanced up idly. A little further, two kids on bikes were having some kind of kind of tug of war, while racing at speeds that seemed idiotically unsafe.  
He swallowed and looked at his can again.  
“Yamaguchi.”  
“Mm?”  
The cyclists raced around a corner, bumped into each other, and one teetered off, straight in the direction of the bench currently containing Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.  
“You know what, never mind,” Tsukishima said. He really needed to think how he was going to put this, before blurting it out. He hadn’t figured out what Yachi even was. If she was some supernatural creature or just... delusional. And what that would make him if he believed her.  
That really seemed like step one here.  
The cyclist heading their way yelped, struggled and regained control of his bike, veering off back to the path just before he would have collided with them.  
“Wow that was dangerous,” Yamaguchi muttered, blinking at the boy who was speeding back off to join his friend.  
“Huh?” Tsukishima looked up, momentarily distracted from his thoughts.  
“Nothing,” Yamaguchi smiled. “Hey, let's go to the convenience store and figure out dinner. I'm in an experimental mood.”  
“Oh dear.”

 

* * *

 

Yachi Hitoka flopped onto her bed as soon as she got home. She wanted to never ever leave it again.   
But she wasn’t allowed to fall asleep just yet. She’d promised Suga she’d take care of herself. She had to eat and bandage her mark up with sun water and all that stuff.  
Oh, and she probably should thank Kuroo, too.  
Yachi pushed herself onto her elbows and opened her laptop.  
One new friend request on Godbook. From Azeban.  
She accepted it and checked to see if any of her other friends were online.  
No such luck.  
She sent a quick thank you note to Kuroo and closed the laptop again.  
Shrugging, she walked into her kitchen to heat up some soup.  
By the time she’d eaten and showered, her head was pleasantly tired.  
Maybe she should have an early night, she thought.  
Just to make sure, she checked her phone.

 

 

_Today 19:32  
From: _ _**Yamaguchi T** _ _:_  
"Hello Yachi-san, how was your day? Me and Tsukki went shopping and ended up in the park. It was really nice out!"

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi smiled to himself as he sent the message, pointedly ignoring the eye-roll on Tsukki.   
The experimental food they made had been slightly too experimental, until they’d turned it into curry.  
Curry was always nice.  
He’d been really happy that he'd gotten Kageyama to join them for dinner, too. He had to get all his house mates talking somehow.  
Even if it did mean that the temperature across the kitchen table was five degrees lower than anywhere else in the house.  
“So how is the art going, Kageyama-kun?” he asked casually. “Heard of any nice exhibitions lately?”  
Tsukki snorted into his plate, but Kageyama looked up with mild interest. “Not really,” he said. “But I think I’m getting over my block.”  
“I didn’t know you had a block? You basically draw every day.”  
“It’s not the same,” Kageyama said, as if that was somehow the most basic knowledge in the universe, “the drawing is nothing. Doodles. The painting is the important part. And I haven’t found anything worth painting in ages.”  
“And you have now?” Yamaguchi asked.  
Tsukki’s face contorted into a smirk. “Do you have a new muse, Starving Artist? Is it that boy?”  
“Please don’t call me that,” Kageyama grumbled.  
“What boy?” Yamaguchi asked.  
“Never mind,” both his companions muttered.  
Yamaguchi frowned. Ok, that was new.  
He’d be upset, but then his phone buzzed.

 

_Today 19:41  
From: _ **Yachi H:**   
"Good evening Yamaguchi-san! It’s nice to hear you had fun today! I also went for a small walk. I’ve been told to get a lot of sun. What did you buy?"

 

Yamaguchi happily descended into a lengthy text conversation, while at the table Tsukki quietly ate. Kageyama tilted his head, before apparently deciding that whatever had him gleefully typing away at the dinner table, wasn’t something he cared about.

 


	9. Weekend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is tea.

On Saturdays, Tsukishima Kei brewed tea.  
He stood in the small, dingy kitchen of the house he shared with his childhood friend and listened to the soft, rising hum of the kettle as he carefully measured two teaspoons of fine Japanese green tea. He dropped them in the clay teapot his brother had given him for his twentieth birthday. The water boiled and he waited, ten seconds, just enough for the temperature to drop a few degrees. Then he carefully poured it into the pot and swilled, inhaling the steam.  
It was a ritual of sorts, he knew, something he’d done for years.  
It gave him a certain amount of well-being. A feeling of calm.  
It grounded him.  
Not that he minded making coffee. He appreciated the shot of adrenaline, the aroma of a good brew. He’d gotten quite good at it, too.   
But that was work, and work, for him at least, happened on days that were not Saturday.  
Besides, coffee was noisy.  
It required a series of aggressive, fast movements. The loud whirr of the grinder, the clack of the scoop being emptied, the tchick tchick of sliding it into the machine with fresh grounds.  
It paled in comparison to the refinement, the sheer quiet of this ancient ritual.

“That smells nice,” Yamaguchi said, voice soft with sleep. He pattered in from upstairs, wearing boxers and an old Tacos t-shirt.   
“What do you want for breakfast?” Tsukishima asked the bleary boy.  
“Cereal.”  
Yamaguchi crossed the living room rubbing his eyes and plopped down at the kitchen table.  
“This is assuming we still have milk,” Tsukishima grumbled. He put the pot of tea down in front of his friend. “Don’t touch it yet,” he said, and he grabbed some bowls.  
“Whatcha doing today?” Yamaguchi asked.  
“As little as possible.”  
Tsukishima put the cereal box on the table and ducked into the fridge.  
“Cool. I think I’m going for a little run, maybe. You went yesterday, right? I’m not ready to get up extra early, but I should probably get back in shape. Or at least try.”  
“Mmm.” He came back to the table with milk and two spoons, and sat down.  
“While it’s still fairly cool out, I mean,” Yamaguchi went on, pouring cornflakes.  
“Mmm.”  
“Where did you run, anyway? Is there a trail nearby?”  
“Not really,” Tsukishima said. “Just around the block.”

Yamaguchi nodded and stuffed a spoon of cereal in his mouth.  
Tsukishima swilled the tea and poured it into two cups.  
He sighed and inhaled the steam, taking a small sip.  
Calmly, he put it down. He regarded his friend.  
“Yamaguchi,” he said. “About Y-”  
The front door opened with a bang and Kageyama stormed through, not even acknowledging the two astonished men in the kitchen while he raced up the stairs, feet heavy on the creaking wood.  
Yamaguchi blinked. “Wow,” he said.  
“Idiot,” Tsukishima muttered under his breath.  
“I wonder if he’s still struggling with the whole art block thing.”  
“Didn’t he just say he was over it?” Tsukishima huffed. “How unstable can you be?”  
Yamaguchi shrugged and took a sip of tea. “Ooh, this is good, Tsukki!”  
“I know.”  
Yamaguchi shoved another spoonful in his mouth, crunching happily for a few moments.  
“So? You were saying?”  
“Oh.” Tsukishima took a breath. “Yamaguchi, I’ve been wondering about Y-”  
A bang, and a pair of feet running down the stairs like a roll of thunder.  
“Why did we move in with a pubescent teenager,” Tsukishima groaned, as Kageyama rushed back through the living room and out the door, carrying a backpack.  
Yamaguchi giggled and finished his bowl.  
“Well, I’d better go if I want to get any running done before it becomes too hot out. Thanks for breakfast, Tsukki! I’ll do the dishes later.”  
He got up and emptied his teacup.  
“Sure.” Tsukishima said, frowning.

 

* * *

 

Yachi Hitoka awoke at nine in the morning and immediately felt guilty.  
She’d missed her duty.  
Again.  
That was like the third time this week. One less soldier probably made it harder for all the other sun gods in the world.  
Suga had told her not to worry about it, but Suga said that a lot and it had never stopped her from worrying.  
She sat up and stretched. She should go out. Maybe buy a new broom.  
Maybe something stronger?  
Suga hadn’t been kidding when he said it could be anything. He used an actual pack of cards.  
She thought about it as she stepped under the shower. Something linked to her very core. Something… Yachi.  
She still hadn’t come up with anything by the time she’d finished breakfast and climbed onto her bike. Pedalling idly, she let her mind drift off and before long she found herself in the familiar neighbourhood of the temple.

A small bell tinkled pleasantly when Yachi walked through the door of the bike shop.  
“Yachi-san!” came the happy voice of its energetic proprietor. “You came back! Are you feeling better?”  
“Hello, Hinata-san” she said. “I'm feeling a lot better, yes. Thank you.”  
Hinata walked up, big round face beaming. He reminded her so much of Suga it was uncanny.  
“I came to have my bike checked,” she said, as if that wasn’t obvious.  
“Ooh, bring it right in. I’m just changing the tire on this one and then I’ll have a look.” He returned to his work, a bicycle hanging from two hooks on the ceiling, and Yachi awkwardly parked her bike against a wall.  
She tilted her head at the guy sitting at the table in the back. “Hello again,” she said. “Kageyama-san, was it?”  
Kageyama nodded at her and returned to his paper. He was drawing something again.  
Shyly, she sidled onto the bench, sitting at the table like she’d done a few days earlier.  
Kageyama didn’t seem like he wanted to make small talk, but Hinata sure did.  
“We were all worried,” he started babbling, “when you crashed like that. I hope you didn’t break anything?”  
“I didn’t,” Yachi shook her head. “Thank you for the kind help.”  
“Not even your head?”  
“Fairly sure I didn’t break my head. That would be awful!” Yachi exclaimed.  
“Right?” Hinata said, smiling widely. “I was super worried.”  
“We’d know if she broke her head, idiot,” Kageyama grumbled.  
“How would we know, huh? People have concussions all the time. It’s not like an egg, Kageyama!”  
Yachi snorted. “Thank you for your concern, but my head is fine.”  
She sat for a while, watching him work, before she turned to Kageyama.  
“So, do you come here every day?” she asked conversationally.  
He looked up and shook his head.  
“We only met again this morning,” Hinata said from across the room. “I bumped into him jogging. What kind of weirdo just hangs out in the street in the middle of the night?”  
“You do, dumbass.”  
“I was jogging!” Hinata huffed. “You were sitting around brooding.”  
“It’s called Art.”  
Yachi was fairly certain she could hear the capital.  
“So are you drawing him?” she asked.  
Kageyama nodded. “He’s a good model,” he said and Yachi smiled at him. “Because he’s weird,” Kageyama added quickly. “Like some gremlin.”  
“Oi!” Hinata yelled, not looking up from his work.

Yachi leaned on the table and pondered. “It’s like you guys have known each other for years.”  
“Well Kageyama is tiring like that, Yachi-san.”  
“Shut up, dumbass, you could just tell me to go if I'm that much trouble.”  
But Hinata just shrugged and started inflating the new tire.  
Was this how it was supposed to go, Yachi thought. Meet someone and suddenly it feels like you’ve known each other forever. Ease into each other’s company like puzzle pieces fitting together.  
She and Yamaguchi were not like that at _all_. It had taken nearly a year before they even went out together.   
“Are you zoning out again, Yachi-san? Are you gonna fall asleep?”  
Yachi’s head shot up and she blinked into the shining face of Hinata.  
“N-no! I’m fine. I’m good. Yes.”  
“You’re silly, Yachi-san,” he giggled. “Let’s have a look at your bike.”

Yachi sat in the warmth of the bike shop, chattering with Hinata as he started fixing things and greasing gears or whatever it was you did with bikes.  
Next to her, a portrait of the redhead was coming into being.  
It was… good. Almost eerily lifelike. Like it could spring from the pages and shout ‘Wuoooh!’.  
She finally stopped herself from gawking at it when Kageyama gave her a pouty sideways glance.  
At some point, Hinata finished with her bike, but he never asked her to go.  
He just kept talking, about Kyoto, and his morning runs and his little sister.  
He came round with coffee – a porcelain mug, she couldn’t help but notice – and she happily listened to the two men squabble about the proper milk-to-coffee ratio while something deep and cold inside her melted.  
She watched Hinata work on bike after bike, and by the time the portrait next to her was finished, she was almost bursting with a profound feeling of well-being.  
“Thank you,” she said, finally getting up to put away their cups. “I can’t believe I spent all afternoon here. I’m sorry to inconvenience you.”  
“Always welcome, Yachi-san,” Hinata beamed at her.  
She went to pay and bowed deeply. “Thanks again, Hinata-san. See you later, Kageyama-san.”  
Hinata waved cheerily while behind him, Kageyama gave her a short nod.  
She got on her bike, tuned up and greased and going smoother than ever, and pedalled back to her apartment, smiling all the way.

The feeling lasted her all evening, through a half-hearted attempt at work, through dinner, through texting Yamaguchi and watching soap operas and getting ready for bed.  
It lasted all the way till morning, when she woke up at eight and the guilt of being a terrible sun goddess washed over her.  
She decided that, if she was going to be useless as a warrior in the fight against the forces of darkness, she should at least get some actual work done.  
She opened the curtains wide, letting sunlight stream into her room.  
The mark on her wrist was still sapping _something_ but all the sleeping she was doing seemed to compensate for that, so what she ended up with, was her normal exhausted state.   
Good enough to work on her doctorate.  
She brewed herself a full thermos of coffee, and set an alarm for when she needed to eat.  
Then she sat at her desk and started writing.

 

* * *

 

It was Sunday morning, and Yamaguchi Tadashi blearily walked into his kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.  
He filled the filter and poured water, yawning, and debated whether he should go for a big fancy breakfast, or just go back to bed. The creaks on the staircase told him he would have company soon, so he turned on the tv to some morning news show and leaned against the counter, waiting for the coffee to pour through.  
“Good morning,” Kageyama said, shuffling in. He looked surprisingly crumpled, maybe because Yamaguchi rarely saw him straight out of bed.  
“Morning.”  
“Are you making coffee?”  
“Yeah.”  
Kageyama paused for a moment. “Are you making anything else?”  
“I haven’t decided yet.”  
“Oh.” Kageyama poured himself a glass of milk and took it to the couch.  
“No drawing practice this morning?” Yamaguchi asked, “I’m not used to you getting out of bed this late. It's like… eight.”  
“Shut up, it’s Sunday,” Kageyama said.  
“Are you taking a break?”  
“Something like that.”  
“Mmm.”

Yamaguchi waited for the coffee to filter through, and poured himself a mug. He lazily flopped onto the couch, sipping and watching the show for a bit, until Kageyama spoke up.  
“Yamaguchi, what do you do when you need to think?”  
“Think?”  
“Mmm.”  
“Uhhh, not sure what you mean.”  
“You’re a thinker,” Kageyama said. “You overthink things. Like a lot. Do you do special things when you're doing all the thinking?”  
“I… do I? Overthink?”  
Kageyama stared at him. “I thought that was obvious.”  
Yamaguchi frowned. “Well,” he said. “I guess I think things through while I work. You know, when I'm doing things with my hands? Like when I'm cooking. Also while walking and jogging and... you know.”  
He wanted to say 'all the time', but that would mean Kageyama was right.  
“What are you asking me for, anyway? You’re the artist here, I'm just a short order cook.”  
Kageyama huffed. “What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t think, I draw.”  
“Ok,” Yamaguchi said, turning to him, “What is this about?”  
“Nothing,” Kageyama mumbled. “It's nothing. I just have... I have a thing.”  
“Yes?”  
“And it's not a thing I can fix by drawing.”  
“Oh,” Yamaguchi said. “I see.”  
Next to him, Kageyama sighed. “Nevermind.”  
“Would you like to talk about it?”  
“No.”  
Yamaguchi sat in silence for a while, as they watched some presenter enthusiastically report on a cheese contest.  
“You know what I haven't had in a while?” he said eventually.  
“Mm?”  
“Full Japanese breakfast.”  
Kageyama nodded. “I'll help.”

 

“Tsukki! Come have breakfast with us,” Yamaguchi shouted when his friend came down, looking mildly confused and just a tad bleary.  
“I made omelet and fried tofu, there's pickled radishes and Kageyama made rice and miso soup.”  
Tsukki raised an eyebrow. “And the kitchen still stands. Should I be impressed?”  
Kageyama glared at him but said nothing. He took a sip of his soup, as if to make a point.  
Warily, Tsukki sat down and quietly munched on the offered food, hesitating slightly before trying each side dish. He muttered something along the lines of “You didn't burn anything,” which was about as good of a compliment as they were likely to get.  
“Big plans today?” Yamaguchi asked, smiling happily into his rice.  
“I have to think,” Kageyama announced.  
Tsukki snorted. “Surely that's the kind of project that requires a full day of planning,” he said.  
Kageyama rolled his eyes. “I'm going for a walk. Thanks for breakfast.”  
He got up, and Yamaguchi gave Tsukki a weary look.  
“What?” Tsukki said.  
“So what about you?” Yamaguchi shrugged.  
“I'm seeing people tonight.”  
“Oh, the computer thing?”  
“Yes, the computer thing.”  
Yamaguchi nodded and picked at his pickled radish.  
“Also, I found the frisbee,” Tsukki added.  
“H-huh?”  
“You said you wanted to get in shape. I found the frisbee, in case you want to go out. I'll need to be back by three though.”  
Yamaguchi stared at his friend wide-eyed. Tsukki calmly munched on rice like he didn’t just suggest an outing that involved old fashioned fun.  
Tsukki was not a 'play' person. Never had been. The idea of playing frisbee together without Yamaguchi having to whine and beg for three days straight made him ecstatic.  
“Sure,” he said, grinning widely. “Let's do that.”

 

Three hours later, Yamaguchi fell onto the grass spread eagled, panting up at the sky.  
“Wow, you really are out of shape,” Tsukki said, coming to sit next to him.  
“Oy,” Yamaguchi huffed. “It's -hah- super hot -huff- and you keep -hah- throwing it off course.”  
“You're supposed to catch it, Yamaguchi, not let it fly way past you.”  
Tsukki opened his backpack and took out a bottle of water, drinking small, measured sips.  
“Me -huff- also,” Yamaguchi said, lamely flailing at Tsukki. “Water. Thirst.”  
Tsukki gave him the bottle, shaking his head. “You sound like you've been lost in the desert for three weeks.”  
“That is exactly how I feel,” Yamaguchi nodded, sitting up. He took a few sips and screwed the cap back on. Next to him, Tsukki was looking around, peering at the environment.  
“What's up,” Yamaguchi said.  
Tsukki took a deep breath. “I've been wondering about your d-”  
Yamaguchi saw it happen almost in slow motion.  
“Tsukki! Duck!”  
The frisbee came out of nowhere and Tsukki was just in time to pull his head lower. A fraction of a second later, a plastic disk skimmed mere millimetres over his hair. It was almost immediately followed by a small, energetic dog bouncing on Tsukki 's chest and leaping into the air to catch his toy.  
Tsukki lay flat on his back in the grass and blinked.  
“What the hell,” he said. “This is getting ridiculous.”  
“Oh wow, are you ok? He got you good, didn't he?” A blond lady with a short bob and a loud voice came up.  
Still dumbstruck, Tsukki sat back up.  
“Did he hurt ya? I'm sorry about that.”  
“I'm... fine,” Tsukki muttered. “Please keep your dog under control.”  
“Oh, cool, good to hear,” the lady said. “Sorry again. Taro, you little shit! C'mere.”  
She ran after the dog, shouting.  
Tsukki took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt, muttering under his breath.  
“Everything ok?” Yamaguchi said, trying to keep a flat face. A disgruntled Tsukki was a sight indeed.  
“Yes. It does take more than a small dog to take me down, Yamaguchi.”  
Yamaguchi giggled. “True. Good thing that frisbee missed you.”  
Tsukki hummed and got up. “Let's get out of here.”  
“Alright, Tsukki !”

They were walking back through the small park when Yamaguchi's phone buzzed.

_Today 14:12_  
From: _**Yachi H** _ _:  
_ "Hello Yamaguchi-san! I hope you're having a great day. I'm actually getting some work done on my thesis! I may finish it in time yet."

He smiled.

_Today 14:13_  
From: _**Yamaguchi T** _ _:  
_ "Good on you, Yachi-san! Good to hear you're back on track. Me and Tsukki played frisbee in the park, and he got pounced on by the cutest dog!"

_Today 14:13_  
From: _**Yachi H:** _ _  
_ "Oh no! Is he alright."

_Today 14:14_  
From: _**Yamaguchi T** _ _:  
_ "Yes, yes. The dog was after a frisbee. Not after Tsukki. It was a cute puppy, very friendly."

_Today 14:14_  
From: _**Yachi H:** _ _  
_ "Phew. Good to hear. I'd better get back to work. See you tomorrow!"

_Today 14:15_  
From: _**Yamaguchi T** _ _:  
_ "Alright. Do your best!"

 

He smiled at his phone and looked up to see Tsukki giving him a strange sideways glance.  
“Yamaguchi,” he said.  
“Yes, Tsukki?”  
“Have you ever considered that Ya-”  
It started with a loud caw that stopped Tsukki in his tracks.  
The sky turned dark.  
They must have stepped in something. Must have walked too close to a nest.  
Yamaguchi had read somewhere that these birds could remember faces, so maybe Tsukki or him resembled someone that had once caused them harm.  
Whatever it was, one moment they were walking calmly through the park, and the next moment a murder of crows took wing above them, blasting out of the trees. They circled, once, before they started swooping down one by one.  
“Tsukki, what is-”  
“Just run!”

They sprinted through the lane, chased by entirely too many angry black birds, and out into the street where Yamaguchi pulled his friend into a convenience store.  
“What the hell,” he said, panting. “We didn't even do anything.”  
The clerk gave them a weird look and they stepped out of sight, behind a few shelves.  
“That's never happened to me,” Yamaguchi said, leaning against a refrigerator, panting. “What the hell. I wonder how long we have to wait till they're gone.”  
Tsukki straightened up and grabbed a bag of chips. “They'll be gone,” he said, sounding very sure of himself.  
“Huh?”  
“Yamaguchi...” Tsukki started saying something but fell silent, looking around him. “You know what, never mind.”  
And he walked off to pay for the snacks.  
When they, tentatively, stepped back out of the store, the crows were indeed gone. Nothing weird happened on the entire way home, other than the fact that Tsukki seemed shaken, and a bit more pale than usual.

 

_Today 20:11_  
From: _**Yamaguchi T** _ _:  
_ "So get this. We were walking through the park and suddenly this flock of crows starts chasing us. It was an eventful day. Hopefully you made a lot of progress on your work."

_Today 20:20_  
From: _**Yachi H** _ _:_  
"Oh No! That sounds super scary. Are you ok?"

_Today 20:21_  
From: _**Yamaguchi T** _ _:  
_ "Yes, don’t worry. We ran and hid in a convenience store. It was just weird!"

_Today 20:23_  
From: _**Yachi H** _ _:_  
"Still, I would be. They have talons and beaks and those manic looking eyes. I always assume a part of every bird still knows that it was descended from the dinosaurs. At least it wasn't seagulls, I guess. One of those once stole my ice cream."

That evening, Yamaguchi lay on the couch, trying to stop himself from constantly sending Yachi texts. She had to work, he told himself, so instead he scrolled through his phone while a baseball game played on tv.  
PR person, he read. Management consultant, pollster, youth worker. Hm.  
Guidance counsellor, maybe?  
He was nearing the end of his year. The 'find yourself' year, and he hadn't exactly found himself.  
It was starting to bother him.  
Tsukki seemed fine, like he always did, but he'd probably already figured it all out. Either that or he didn't care enough. He'd be good with just moving home and becoming a salaryman, and he'd just coast his way through life, Yamaguchi assumed.  
The same would not work for him.  
He glanced at the tv. Sports caster? Game show host? Yeah right.

“Do you have a plan B, Kageyama-kun?” he asked the boy sitting in a chair nearby.  
“Hmmm?” Kageyama looked up from his notebook.  
“For like... your life,” Yamaguchi said. “What would you be if you weren't a painter? If it turns out you can't make a living doing that.”  
Kageyama went back to drawing. “You're overthinking again.”  
“Maybe.” Yamaguchi said, staring at the tv. “But I should probably figure out what I wanna do.”  
Kageyama was quiet, his pencil making soft scratchy sounds in his book.  
“I suppose,” he said eventually, “if I don't make it... If the money runs out, I'd go work in a grocery store or something.”  
“You'd be terrible at retail, Kageyama-kun.”  
“A factory then,” he shrugged. “Administration. Post office.”  
“Just like that?”  
“It would cut down on the painting time, sure, but I have to eat.”  
“Mail man by day, painter by night, huh.”  
“I guess.”  
Yamaguchi turned back to the list on his phone. It must be nice to be as passionate as a Kageyama, he thought. He'd never really been super into anything. That was sort of the point of this whole year. To live and have some adventures and figure it all out.  
But he was never going to figure anything out, he thought. Not without some kind of divine intervention.

 


	10. Curse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tsukishima dislikes gods.

Yachi Hitoka slept through three alarms and woke up at seven, cursing herself.   
She opened the curtains and took off the bandage around her wrist.  
The mark was still there, still very present.  
It throbbed a little in the early morning sun but otherwise it was unchanged. No bigger, but no smaller either.  
She should probably tell Suga, but then he'd get worried again. She sat with her arm next to the window, soaking up the sun until the mark had faded enough to look like an old scar.  
Today she was going to look for a new place to fight in. Kageyama hadn't given her the impression that he was going to move any time soon and, honestly, she wasn't ready to face that Bad One again.   
But first, she was going to see Yamaguchi.   
Finally.  
For the first time since their date.   
And Tsukishima. Him as well.  
She swallowed thickly, thinking of the Glare she was no doubt going to have to withstand.   
He'd been really upset the last time she saw him. She just hoped he would be able to forgive her.  
The fact that Yamaguchi still talked to her gave her hope, at least.  
Shaking off any lingering fear, she scooped up her notes and headed out the door.

 

* * *

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi washed his hands and looked around his kitchen. Rice: check. First batch of muffins resting on the counter: check. Second batch of muffins in the oven, timed for fifteen minutes: check. Pancake batter: check. Bacon: precooking.   
He was doing good.   
The bell tinkled and he heard a familiar voice.   
“H-hello Tsukishima-san,” it said. “G-good morning.”  
Yamaguchi resisted the urge to look into the restaurant. She sounded a little more... demure than usual.   
“What can I get you,” Tsukki said, voice steady and cold. “Today's special is lemon and poppy seed muffins.”  
“Oh, I'll have one of those, yes. And a latte. And two eggs, overeasy-”  
“On rice, with a grilled tomato, yes.” Tsukki walked into the kitchen and sighed, leaning against the doorway.  
“I take it you heard all that?”  
“Yeah, got it,” Yamaguchi grinned. “I'll take it out, thanks.”  
“Mmmhmmm.”  
He left again and Yamaguchi could hear Yachi strike up a conversation with Fukuzawa-san, before the coffee machine started rattling.   
He carefully cracked two eggs and hummed to himself as he prepared the order.  
A few minutes later, he finished the tray and quickly checked himself in the oven door.   
He looked fine. It was fine.  
Still, his heart skipped a little when he walked into the shop and saw her sitting there, a little blushy, blowing into her latte. How a girl could manage to actually glow this early in the day, he would never understand.  
“Good morning, Yachi-san,” he said and she looked up, smiling.  
“Yamaguchi-san, it's good to see you again! I'm so sorry about dropping off the face of the planet like that.”  
He shook his head. “It's fine. Kageyama said you had a nasty fall. I'm just glad you're ok.”  
“I'm good, I'm good.” She showed him the bandages on her elbow. “Just a scrape. But I was told I should rest a little because my head was all woozy.”  
He nodded.  
“I didn't know you lived with Kageyama-san?” she said, sipping from her latte.   
“He's my housemate. Together with Tsukki.”  
“Ohhh, that's so cool,” she said. “And thank you for the food.” She clapped her hands together and happily dug in. Yamaguchi watched her for a moment, trying to suppress the ridiculous grin that was probably all over his face.   
He couldn't get over how cute she was, even as a little grain of rice lodged itself onto her cheek.  
He took a deep breath.  
“So I've been thinking,” he said. “Have you ever heard of the flea market in Tezukuri-Ichi?”  
She nodded and swallowed. “That's the one with all the cute crafts, yes?”  
“Mm.”  
He looked down at the table and swallowed.   
“So I was thinking-” Just then, the beeper on his oven went off.  
“Oh! The muffins. Please excuse me for a moment.”   
Cursing under his breath, he ran back into the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

Yachi Hitoka smiled to herself as she shovelled rice into her mouth. Was he going to ask her on a second date? Was that what that was?  
Oh gods a second date. That sounded serious.   
She had to stop chewing for a second to gasp.   
What was she going to do to make it through that?  
As she told herself to stay strong, Fukuzawa-san walked out and she waved.  
“Thank you for your patronage,” Tsukishima droned, then he walked around the counter and loomed over her table.  
“Yachi-san,” he said in a voice that could have frozen a volcano, “What did you do?”  
“I'm.…sorry? What?”  
She looked up into Tsukishima's very stern, very dangerous looking face. His lips were a thin line, his eyes two hot coals.  
“What. Did. You. Do,” he repeated.   
“I... don't know? What do you think I,… uh, um.. I…”  
“Things happen,” he said calmly. “Whenever I try to tell anyone about-”  
A glass pitcher fell from the top shelf and he almost effortlessly leaned over the counter to snatch it out of the air.  
“-about you.” he said. “Like this.” He pointed at the pitcher and glared at her.  
“Oh my gods, really?”   
Yachi balked. That sounded super dangerous.   
“That's terrible Tsukishima-san! People could get hurt.”  
“Well yes, Yachi-san,” he sighed, giving her the look of a teacher at his wit's end, “which is exactly why I'm asking you what you _did._ ”  
“I didn't do anything,” she said, shaking her head. “I was hoping you just hadn't tried to tell him.”  
He peered at her for a moment.  
“So it's that Suga person,” he said.  
“I doubt he has that kind of power,” Yachi started, and then she suddenly had a revelation.   
“Oh,” she said.  
“Oh, what?”  
“Um,” she said.  
“Um, _what._ ”  
“Uh, I think you should probably talk to Suga-san,” she finally muttered, avoiding his eyes. “I could give you his phone number, maybe...”  
“Please do.”  
She obediently fished out her phone and clicked around on it. “He works in a hospital,” she said, “and he has a lot of strange shifts so I don't know if he'll be available any time soon, but-”  
She held out the screen and Tsukishima took down the number.  
“Thank you.”   
“You really tried to tell him, huh,” she mumbled. That was mildly disappointing.   
No wonder things were going so well. Suga's phone call had made it so.  
Tsukishima looked offended. “Well you're not doing it.”  
“I'm getting there! I swear,” she said. “We haven't even seen each other. You know, since.”  
He looked down his nose at her, giving her a look you'd spare for a candy wrapper that's been in the gutter for three weeks. “Right.” he said, and he returned to his counter just as Yamaguchi came out of the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

„I got you a fresh one,” Yamaguchi Tadashi said as he placed the still hot muffin on Yachi's tray.  
“Oh, thank you!” She looked a little bit pale, but she smiled at him. “So we were talking about a flea market?”  
“Right. Yes,” Yamaguchi said, straightening up. “The crafts one. It's once a month. And it's tomorrow.”  
“Ohhhh. That's cool.”  
“And, uh, I was wondering if you, uh had time, to, uh, you know... go?”  
There was a small pause as Yachi froze and Yamaguchi's heart stood still wondering if she was going to turn him down.   
Then her whole face stretched into a wide smile and she nodded.  
“I'd like that,” she said.   
“Nice. I was thinking maybe we could meet up around here, or at your university, and then take a bus there.”  
“Oh, yes. I have work until noon, but I can take the afternoon off, hopefully.”  
“Mm, well just let me know if it doesn't work out, no biggie.”  
She nodded and the bell tinkled, announcing three new customers.   
They started ordering french toast and Yamaguchi stood up.  
“I'd better get back to work,” he said. “Have a good day.”  
“Thank you,” she beamed at him. “You too!”

 

* * *

 

Yachi Hitoka very nearly skipped on her way to her bike.  
A second date! That was a big step.   
Huge.   
She cycled to the university and parked it in the shed, feeling a little giddy.  
She hadn't messed it up. He still wanted to see her again, even after all the stupid stuff she pulled.  
It was enough of a good feeling to keep her steady through meeting her professor and explaining to him that yes, she got a nasty fall, and yes, she was ok now, sorry for the inconvenience.  
It was almost enough to get her through a visit to the teacher's office, where a very stern looking woman stared at her over her glasses. She took a whole five minutes to carefully read through the doctor's note while Yachi stood there hoping to every god she knew that Azeban was a good forger and not just pulling people's leg trying to get free tickets to Hawaii.   
“This is in order,” the woman said, finally. “I hope you feel better.”  
“I do,” Yachi nodded, sweating profusely. “I do, thank you.”  
“Have a good day.”  
Yachi carefully walked back out of the office, through the hall and around a corner before she collapsed against a wall and sighed in relief.   
That had worked.  
Oh gods that had worked. She made a mental note to thank Yukie later.   
She had done something horrifically illegal and had somehow gotten away with it. It made her feel like an evil mastermind, but only for a moment. She still had other things to do.

She'd thought of a few places where she could fight.   
The university building she worked at had a fairly large basement, but that was not a place that PHD students or even professors were supposed to go. It was the realm of janitors and cleaning staff, incidentally the kind of people that start work early.  
There were a few sports fields nearby. Nice open spaces with a view of the eastern sky. They would work for her right now, but not as the days grew shorter and sunrise crept up to five, six or even seven in the morning. She was fairly certain the archery team sometimes started practising at five thirty.  
Making her way around the building, she headed to the place she considered her best option. Tucked away between a bunch of hedges, past the tennis fields and the decorative garden, was an old conservatory. The big glass house had lost funding a while ago, and could use a good scrub-down, but it was still being used by her department.  
It was large and built in Victorian style, a big structure of white painted metal and glass that looked and felt like a church.   
A long hallway with a rounded roof led up to a tall dome, where the conservatory branched off into side sections.  
The place housed some of the university's older 'exotic plant collection', including some palms and a rare specimen of Amorphophallus titanum, a giant, alien looking arum lily that was taller than Yachi and flowered for one day every eight years. It also smelled of rotting corpses when it did that, so she was happy that right now, it was safely closed.   
More importantly, one section was used by the botany students to nurse seedlings. She was allowed to be here, and even at night she could probably think of an excuse to still be working.  
The key to the conservatory hung on a hook by her professor's door, and she easily lifted it off and smuggled it down. One more step on the path to crime, she briefly noted, as she slipped into the glass house and walked through the long corridor flanked with orchids and water plants. It was unpleasantly warm and humid in here, but it would have to do. Her goal was right there, in the middle of the dome. A flat, circular deck, a tiled ring edged by benches. There used to be a gazebo in the middle, for concerts, but that was long gone. Right now, it mostly resembled a small training ground.   
She stood in the middle and looked east.   
Beyond the glass walls were some bushes and ponds, and then a break in the hedges. From here she could see across the park.  
It was perfect.  
Yachi nodded to herself.   
Now all she needed was a new weapon.

 

* * *

 

 

Tsukishima Kei walked up to the bleachers near a small baseball court and sat down.   
He looked around. No one here. Some kids had been playing ball but they'd just left. No wayward baseballs. No moving objects in the vicinity.  
Birds were always an issue, he supposed, but he wasn't too far from a shack he could run into.   
The took a deep breath and dialled.   
It had to be that Suga guy. Yachi was the type of person that would be a terrible, terrible liar, and he definitely didn't see her being brave enough to lie to his face like that.   
There were two soft beeps and then the call was picked up.  
“Hello, Sugawara speaking.”  
“Sugawara-san, this is Tsukishima.”    
There was a moment's pause, before Sugawara made a small choking sound.  
“Ohhh, right. Hi!”  
“I think you know what I'm calling you for,” Tsukishima said, struggling to keep his voice level and polite.  
“Not really? I figured if you have questions, Yachi could probably answer them. What's this about?”  
Tsukishima frowned. “She gave me your number so I could ask you what you did to me.”  
“Uhh, explain? What is, uh, happening to you?” came the mildly worried voice of Sugawara.  
“Stuff happens. Things fall. Doors get blown open. I get randomly attacked by birds.”  
“That's... weird?” He sounded like he meant it. “And you think this has something to do with us? Is this like randomly or...”  
“You know very well that it's not. Whenever I try to talk about you lot, the universe bends over backwards to interrupt me.”    
“Hmmm.”  
“It was you, wasn't it?” Tsukishima huffed, getting irritated at so much non-commital answering. “Why are you hmm'ing?”  
“So you did try to tell him,” Sugawara said.   
“He is my best friend and he's dating a weird girl that does weird shit and that's going to drag him into all this dangerous stuff and he has a right to know.”  
Sugawara sighed. “I'm sorry,” he said. “And you're right. He does have the right to know, and when they get serious, Yachi should really sit him down and-”  
“It's pretty serious for Yamaguchi.”  
He could almost hear Sugawara smile. “That's… that's nice. But as far as I can tell they still only  went on one date."  
Tsukishima growled.    
“Tsukishima-san, I'm sorry," Sugawara said quickly. "I kinda panicked. I didn't know how you'd react to the news and I couldn't risk you blabbing about it to everyone.”  
“W hat. Did. You. Do!”  
“Technically. I didn't do anything,” Sugawara went on. “I called in a favour. From Apollo."  
“What?”  
“But what you're describing is not what I asked for,” Sugawara mumbled.  
“W- what?” Tsukishima repeated.    
“Well, I mostly wanted to make sure our identities stayed a secret. So I asked a friend of ours to make sure you couldn't spill. What I requested was something... do you know Cassandra of Troy? She was a soothsayer cursed by Apollo so that no one ever believed her predictions. It seemed like an easy way, just have no one believe you when you talk about us,you know?”  
“That's not what this is,” Tsukishima barked.  
“Well obviously,” Sugawara said. “Leave it to Oikawa to consider a heavy duty classic curse 'too boring'.”  
Tsukishima closed his eyes. His head was starting to hurt. “You cursed me,” he said.  
“I.…Apollo did. Yes. But just a little bit! If you try to tell him about Yachi and gods and … things.”  
“You  _cursed_ me.”  
“I'm sorry! I needed to do damage control fast. It was the first thing I could think of.”  
Tsukishima took a deep breath. “Well,” he said, “please take it off.”    
“I uh can't,” Sugawara said thoughtfully, “I didn't, uh, do it, see. And I don't know if Oikawa even knows how to lift curses. Either way, it should sort itself out once Yamaguchi finds out the truth himself.”  
“What am I supposed to do until then?”  
“Not try to tell him?” Sugawara suggested, and Tsukishima could definitely hear the shrug.   
“You guys are assholes.”  
“If it helps,” Sugawara said, “in olden times they'd just-”  
“No,”Tsukishima barked. “That does not help.”  
“Uh, right,” Sugawara said. “Anyway, I should get back to work. Nice talking to you!”  
The call clicked off and Tsukishima sat there in silence, glaring at his phone.  
Gods, he decided, were the  _worst_ .

 

* * *

 

«Dear gods what am I going to do now?» Yachi Hitoka asked, flopping onto her bed. «This has never happened before. This is fully uncharted territory. I'm sailing into shark infested waters without a map.»  
«That's very poetic of you, Yachi,» Kuroo said, in his tile on her laptop screen. He was sitting in a reading chair a little away from the camera, black cat in his lap, paperback in his hand.  
«Yamaguchi-san asked me out again.»  
«Nice,» Kuroo grinned. «Whereto this time?»  
«Flea market.»  
«Classic.»  
«Ya-chan you got a second date without putting out? I'm so proud of you!» came the voice of Oikawa. His tile flipped on to show him sitting in a very modern looking room, surrounded by electronics.  
«Uh, thank you?»  
«Wait, you're actually home?» Suga said. «You still have a home?»  
Suga was on his couch again, wearing pyjamas with tiny cartoon octopi on them, eating some kind of beef bowl.  
«Of course I have a home,» Oikawa scoffed. «I need to recuperate somewhere.»  
«More importantly, Yachi, show me the mark,» Suga said.  
Yachi awkwardly held her arm in front of her laptop camera. «It's the same as it was a few days ago,» she said. «Not bigger or smaller. It fades during the day.»  
«Hmm you haven't really had any overcast days, have you?»  
She shook her head.  
«I was going to look up sources for you, but I basically worked three days straight,» Suga said.  
«Oh, please don't worry too much about me. It doesn't even hurt any more. Not all the time, at least.»  
«But it's also not going away,» Suga pointed out. «We may actually have to call in the Great Oikawa over here.»  
«I appreciate the sentiment, Su-chan, but I'm not sure if I would even know what to do. I've never tried to heal anyone before.»  
«Wait, does that mean you've cursed people before, Oikawa-san?» Yachi asked, mortified.  
«Yeah, he had zero trouble doing that,» Suga added.  
Oikawa just smiled at the camera, eyes glinting. «I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about,» he said.  
«You changed it, too, you bastard,» Suga huffed. «That boy's been getting attacked by birds.»  
Oikawa guffawed. «That worked? Oh wow! That's amazing! I'm amazing.»  
«Tsukishima-san was pretty upset,» Yachi muttered.  
«Hey, so am I. I am so sad I can't be there to see that in action,» Oikawa said.  
«He tried to explain it to me this morning and a pitcher fell just as he was about to say the g-word. Apparently someone was about to hit him with a bike, too, but he managed to stop in time.»  
«Ahahahahaha! Oh man. I have to remember that one. This is the best idea I ever had.»  
«Oikawa....» Suga whined.  
«What? It works! You wanted him silenced and he is. At least now he knows to shut his mouth. You can't blame me for making it _fun_.»  
Kuroo sniggered. «Really? He got attacked by birds? I kinda wish I could curse people now.»  
«Well this just goes to show I'm that much more talented that you plebs,» Oikawa sang.  
«Anyway, back to the problem at hand,» Kuroo sniffed, «I've been trying to find this Velasquez person. Since he's the one who actually did helpful things with all his sun god powers.»  
In his tile, Oikawa poked his tongue out. «See if I ever do you guys a favour again,» he moped.  
«There is a chance he's still alive,» Kuroo continued, ignoring him, «and if he isn't, hopefully he has like... some notes or whatever about lifting shadow bites. »  
«Thank you. I'm sorry to cause you all so much work,» Yachi said.  
Suga just shrugged. «It was bound to happen. To one of us. Kinda surprised it doesn't happen more often. I've been trying to contact some of the other sun gods but it's not going too well.»  
«Elusive buggers, sun gods,» Kuroo nodded.  
«Well, just know that I'm always here for you, Ya-chan. Just as soon as Kuroo flies me first class to Kyoto.»  
«How about we find an actual way to cure her first, you pompous diva?»  
«Oh boo.»

 


	11. Hair clip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a second date.

Yachi Hitoka walked into the diner at noon and ordered a latte to go, carefully avoiding the glare of Tsukishima.  
“He'll be right out”, he said, dropping the drink before her nose. “Try not to sell his soul or anything.”  
“I... I won't. I promise,” Yachi stammered.   
“All set?” Yamaguchi said as he came out. He'd taken off his apron and his face was a little pink, like he'd just splashed cold water onto his skin.  
“Ready to go, Yamaguchi-san,” she smiled.   
They got on the bus and Yachi sat next to him, feeling a little breathless. He smelled nice, this close up. Of soap, of washing powder and some kind of deodorant she didn't know. There was a lingering coffee smell, too.   
He smelled very homely, she thought.  
As they drove through the city, Yamaguchi chatted about his weird roommate Kageyama, and the paintings he made.  
“He's really good,” Yachi nodded. “I was very scared the first time I met him. But he doesn't seem too bad now.”  
“Yeah, he's... intimidating,” Yamaguchi nodded. “Where did you guys meet anyway.”  
“Oh, uh, he... hangs out at this temple, where I come sometimes. He wanted to 'capture' me, he said.”  
Yamaguchi sniggered at her awed tone. “Oh god that sounds terrible. I understand why you were scared now. But he probably just wanted to draw you because you're pretty, Yachi-san.”  
“Well yes, but that's not what he said.”  
Next to her, Yamaguchi smiled, face still a little pink.   
“He apologized though. And his friend is super nice. I guess it's not too bad.”  
“Wait, he has friends now?” Yamaguchi frowned for a moment. “Good for him, I guess.”

 

* * *

 

The bus reached their stop and Yamaguchi Tadashi helped his date down the steps and into the temple square.  
The market here focused on crafts, mostly. Handmade ornaments and jams, purses made from old kimonos, that sort of thing. He'd picked it because it seemed like the type of thing that Yachi would like, and also because it was a fairly small market, and it could get mildly busy.   
He wouldn't mind their hands brushing together again.  
So far, he seemed to at least be right on the first part. Yachi loved the place. He had a lot of fun watching her eyes light up at all the pottery and knitwear, and the colourful little wooden statues that one of the stalls sold.   
She was talking at length about one of her colleagues and his work on birch trees, and Yamaguchi tried hard to focus, but he kept getting distracted by his own hormones.  
He'd called her pretty. Right to her face. Which, you know, wasn't wrong, but was also kinda embarrassing. And apparently, she hadn't even registered it.   
Probably for the best.   
She stopped at a stall selling small jewellery and hair decorations.   
“Yamaguchi-san, look! These are so cute!”  
“Mmm, they are,” he said. “Is there any you like?”  
The black cloth was filled with wooden and metal earrings, pendants and hair clips, all shaped like various plants and flowers.   
“They're all so pretty,” Yachi said breathlessly. “I want to get one but I don't know which.”  
“How about that one?” he said, pointing out a hair clip near the top of the table. It was decorated with a small flower, delicate, almost fragile looking, bright pink with a white centre and white edges around the petals.  
“Isn't that a morning glory one? It reminds me of you.” He froze the moment he'd said it, but Yachi-san was studying it with interest.  
“Very good eye, sir,” the seller said. “That's a Brocade of Dawn.”  
Yachi's face beamed as the seller showed her the clip. “It's beautiful,” she said and Yamaguchi wanted to take that smile and put it in a jar on his night stand. But barring that, he very much wanted to be the cause of that smile.  
“Why don't I buy it for you?” he suggested.  
Yachi's eyes went wide. “Oh, nono, I couldn't possibly...”  
“It's only 900 yen, Yachi-san, it's not that big a deal,” he said apologetically.   
She looked at the clip again, doubtful.   
“It would look really nice on you,” he said.   
She took a deep breath, face determined. “Ok, but I'm paying for our ice cream later.”  
“We're having ice cream?” he laughed.  
“Unless you want...”  
“No, no, that sounds really nice. Ice cream it is.”  
He smiled and bought her the clip, placing it in her delicate, small hand. 

“Oh, should I wear it?” she said. “I kinda want to wear it.”  
“Let me?” Yamaguchi had spoken before he thought again, but she nodded happily and gave him the clip, making him suddenly very aware of the fact that he had no experience as a hair dresser or decorator or whatever, and no business putting his grubby fingers into his date's probably very clean hair.  
But she smiled encouragingly, so he swallowed and carefully brushed a small lock of hair away from her cheek.  
Oh god her hair was soft. It was like friggin silk, what was he even doing?  
Taking a deep breath, he opened the clip and carefully slid it in, making sure not to pull on any stray strands of hair.  
Yamaguchi's face felt hot, and he was fairly certain the jewellery seller was grinning at the both of them, but it was fine. He could do this.  
Heart beating in his throat, he closed the clip and took a step back.  
He gave his work a critical look. It wasn't half bad, if he did say so himself. Good job, Yamaguchi, you've managed to successfully secure a hair clip, meant for securing hair.   
“Would you like to see?” The jewellery seller pulled out a hand mirror.  
“That, uh, looks really cute on you,” Yamaguchi stammered.  
She grinned widely, face glowing in the sunlight. “Thank you!”

 

* * *

 

Yachi Hitoka, proud of her latest little hair clip, the first one that was ever given to her by a date, had to stop her face from contorting into a weird clown mask while they walked among the stalls.  
Next to her, Yamaguchi didn't seem to notice, while he told her the story of his high school volleyball team, and how he and Tsukki had placed for Regionals with it.   
The little market was nearing the end of its run and people were starting to leave, jostling through the small streets between the stalls. Yachi walked closer to her date, their hands brushing.  
She looked up at Yamaguchi, who still seemed a little pink.  
“If I remember correctly, we passed a nice looking place on the way here from the bus stop,” he said. “If you want to have a drink. And ice cream.”  
He smiled at her.  
She nodded happily.  
The back of their hands touched. If she just reached out a finger…  
It was, altogether, a rather smooth movement, if she did say so herself.   
Natural, almost.   
She reached out, hand lingering just a little in the space next to his, and just as easily, he took it. It was only then that they both seemed to realize it and they looked at each other, blinking.  
She grinned up at him. Yamaguchi, cheeks still that adorable pink, gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

 

* * *

 

“I’m home.”  
Yamaguchi Tadashi slipped out of his shoes and stepped into his small living room.  
“Hey,” Tsukishima said. “I made stir fry. There’s some left.” He was lying on the couch, reading, with a glass of barley tea next to him.  
“Ooh, thanks.” Yamaguchi plopped into the other couch.  
He was tired. A profound but extremely pleasant sort of tired. It felt like his heart had swelled three sizes that day. He kinda wanted to rant about it, but he was pretty sure Tsukki wouldn’t appreciate.  
“How’s the book?” he said instead.  
Tsukki looked up, eyes scanning Yamaguchi and the no doubt stupid grin plastered on his face.  
“Nearly finished,” Tsukki said. Then he took a sip of tea and sighed. “Go ahead.”  
“So my date was nice,” Yamaguchi said, words spilling out of his mouth like a waterfall. “We went to this little crafts market and it was really nice and cute and her hair is soft and I held her hand and I’m going to melt. I feel like a high school student around her, I swear.”  
“Mmm,” Tsukki hummed.   
“I gave her a hair clip. Of a flower. I've never done that before and it sounds so stupid now that I mention it but she seemed so happy and ugghhhh what am I going to do?”  
“Try not to get carried away this time maybe.”  
“I knowwww,” Yamaguchi whined. “I know. Ok? But it’s been so long since I felt like this. She’s so… bright. I swear she glows or something and it’s warm and it shines straight into my deepest…”  
Tsukki gave him a deadpan look.  
Yamaguchi took a deep breath. “I’m going to eat,” he said, “Maybe I’ll go jogging or something later. Wanna join?”  
“No thank you.”

 

* * *

 

«And then we had ice cream in this really cute parlour,» Yachi Hitoka said.  
She was curled up in front of her laptop. She should probably eat something, she thought, or work, but she was feeling too giddy to do anything other than squeal.  
«Gods, what are you, sixteen?» Oikawa asked. He leaned his chin on his hand and made a face, pouting in the camera from what looked like his work desk. «Cake dates and hair clips and ice cream and you're still not kissing, I swear to my friggin self, Ya-chan.»  
«Don’t be such a bully, Oikawa,» Suga said. «They held hands.»  
He kept walking in front of the camera, seemingly getting ready for work. He stopped to lean in. «That sounds super cute, by the way, Yachi. I'm happy for you.»  
«At this pace it’ll take years for her to get laid!» Oikawa shouted.  
Suga rolled his eyes at the camera and walked off down the room.   
«I mean really, ice cream and hair clips and and… That’s for teenagers.»  
«Shoujou tropes are for life, Oikawa,» Suga said from afar, voice muffled a little by the toothbrush in his mouth.  
«What the hells is a shoujou?»  
Suga took the toothbrush out. «You know. Romance. Oh wait, you wouldn’t know romance if it kicked you in the face.»  
«Well what would you do, Oikawa-san?» Yachi said, hoping to diffuse the situation.  
«Oh gods don't ask him.»  
«I once took this hottie to a burlesque club on a second date. Ended the evening in bed with both him and the stripper.» Oikawa winked at the camera.  
Suga came back with a glass of water.  
«Yachi-chan it's ok to take your time. It's your life, you choose the pace. Please note that Oikawa rarely makes it to a third date-»  
«Because I get bored of them, Su-chan. Not because of a lack of ice cream, I can assure you. I tried that once. It melts too quickly when you're-.» He stopped himself when he noticed Yachi's wide eyes staring at the screen. «Also who are you to give dating advice, you old maid.»  
«I am someone who managed to actually have a relationship that lasted more than a week, _Too-channn_.» He poked out his tongue, toothpaste still smeared around his mouth.  
«Was that with the guy who stole your coffee maker, or the one that tried to have you institutionalized, _Su-chan_.»   
«Please don’t fight?» Yachi tried.   
«Oh don’t worry about it, Yachi, Oiks over here is just still upset that I beat him at poker that one time.»  
«Oh, you’re bringing that up, are you?»  
«I will never allow you to forget, mister big fancy sun god.»  
Oikawa huffed. «Fine. Yachi: take him to a burlesque show. Film the whole thing. I want to see both your faces.»  
«Uhh, I’ll, uh, think about it,» Yachi said, while on her screen, Suga waved goodbye and turned off his camera.  
Dating, she decided, was difficult for everyone.   
She looked over to her reflection in the window, her new flowery hair clip still there, securely in place.   
It might be worth all the trouble, she thought.

 


	12. Picnic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it rains.

Yachi Hitoka parked her bike in the shed next to her uni building and slipped inside.  
This early in the morning, the place was deserted. Her steps echoed in the hallways, and the only light she saw came from some poor PHD student still studying in the small sciences library.  
She tried to soften her steps as she walked to her locker in the lower hallway and put in the combination to open it.  
She had to admit, choosing her university as a new arena had its advantages. Specifically, it meant she didn’t have to lug her new broom on her bike every morning.  
The model she’d chosen was sturdier than her plastic foldable one. It was made of real hawthorn wood, with birch bristles. It reminded her of the kind of old school broom witches use in fairy tales and that was part of the reason she chose it.  
Its purpose was to do some form of magic, after all. It felt fitting.  
She picked the broom out of the locker and took it with her outside, to the conservatory. Using the key she’d swiped from her professor, she let herself in and walked the path to the big dome.  
The glass house smelled heavily of vegetation, a dewy, wet smell that felt very familiar and at the same time a little oppressive.  
“Right,” she told herself as she stepped into the round open space in the middle. “Let’s do this.”  
With about ten minutes to sunrise, she swept the sand around her in a circle that lit up briefly when it was finished. Then, she waited.

The shadows were different here. They gathered first in the ponds and recesses of the ornate garden, pooling under bridges and overhanging leaves. They met in bushes, before clinging together to ooze their way towards her.  
Squaring her shoulders, she grabbed the broom and brandished it. It sailed through the air in a perfect arc. A shadow dripping from a nearby railing disintegrated.  
That was surprisingly effective, she thought.   
Sparks seemed to fly from the bristles, it was almost like it reached further than its physical presence.  
It was a very nice feeling, Yachi had to admit.  
It felt... powerful.  
The sky in the east turned a paler shade of blue, and Yachi swept.

She came out of the conservatory twenty minutes past sunrise, feeling victorious but extremely drained. Like she’d just run a marathon.  
Quietly, she put the key back and returned her broom to the lower hallway, pondering if she should go home, or just stay here and have a little nap instead.  
She climbed the stairs to the little office she shared with two other teacher’s assistants and sat down, sipping water. Curious, she took off the bandage, dropping her wrist next to the window.  
It looked darker than usual. Maybe just a little bigger, too.  
Yachi could have sworn she’d been very diligent with the whole sun water thing.  
Maybe the shadow fight had taken a bit much, she wondered.  
Her eyes certainly felt heavy.  
Just a little nap. She'd feel so much better with a tiny nap.  
Yachi closed her eyes and leaned her face against the glass pane, where her colleague found her, still fast asleep four hours later.

 

* * *

_Today 10:10  
_ From _:_ _**Yachi H** _ _:  
_ "Good morning Yamaguchi-kun. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the coffee shop this morning. I kinda overslept."

_Today 10:13  
_ From _:_ _**Yamaguchi T** _ _:  
_ "No worries. I hope your professor wasn’t too upset?"

_Today 10:16  
_ From _:_ _**Yachi H** _ _:  
_ "Oh no, it was nothing like that. I fell asleep in my office."

_Today 10:17  
_ From _:_ _**Yachi H** _ _:  
"_ Oh! I wanted to ask. How do you feel about picnics?"

Yamaguchi Tadashi grinned as he read the message. Look at him, getting invited for a third date.  
Tsukki appeared at the hatch. “Two hard boiled eggs, one scrambled, one sunny side up. And a side order of bacon. Four orders of toast.”  
“Coming up!”  
Yamaguchi prepared the order while his mind drifted to rice balls and those cucumber triangle sandwiches.  
He slid the trays of eggs and toast over the hatch and pulled out his phone.

_Today 10:23  
_ From _:_ _**Yamaguchi T** _ _:  
_ "That sounds nice. What sort of picnic were you thinking of?"

_Today 10:24  
_ From _:_ _**Yachi H** _ _:  
_ "I was hoping to make some rice balls and maybe some sandwiches? I’m not as good a baker as you but I think I might figure something out."

Ohgodshewassocute.

_Today 10:23  
_ From _:_ _**Yamaguchi T** _ _:  
_ "That looks like a great plan. I’ll bring drinks." _  
_

Pleased with himself, he put his phone away again and looked up into the mildly accusing glance of Tsukki.  
“Is something wrong, Tsukki ?”  
“You forgot ketchup.”  
“Oh!” He sprinted to the fridge to grab a handful of packets and handed them over.  
“Please keep your head straight, Yamaguchi.”  
“Sorry, Tsukki !”

 

* * *

 

Kuroo Tetsurou sat at his desk preparing his lesson for the next day, when a usually black tile on his computer screen flickered and turned on.  
『 Yo Kiyoko, 』 he grinned.  
『 Hello Tetsurou, 』 the woman on the tile said. She sat on a bed in a very cozy looking bedroom, wearing lounge clothes.  
『 Long time no see, 』 Kuroo said.  
『 Mm, I’ve been quite busy, I’m afraid. 』   
『 Hey, I get that. Lots of protesters, still? 』   
Shimizu looked down and nodded. Now that he thought about it, she did look a little tired. The beautiful eyes underneath her glasses a tad red, gorgeous skin maybe slightly paler than usual.  
『 Sorry to bring that up. How’s Yui? 』   
『 She is well, thank you. Kai? 』   
『 He’s awesome as always, 』 Kuroo grinned.  
『 I wanted to talk to you about mrs. Harrow, 』 Shimizu said. 『 I was in New Jersey last week, so I went to look for her like you asked. 』   
『 Ohhh, 』 Kuroo's eyes lit up. 『 That's great. What’s the verdict? 』   
『 She passed away. 』   
『 Well damn, 』 Kuroo said. 『 Less great, that one. I feared as much, since she wasn’t answering any of my messages. 』   
Shimizu looked down at her hands and worried her lip. 『 Died under suspicious circumstances, it seems. I talked to her son. Here’s the link to the article. 』   
She leaned in and pasted a link to a local newspaper in the chat box.  
‘Local woman found dead in car crash’  
The article went on to detail that she’d gone missing two weeks before, and that weird markings had been found on the body. The car had crashed into a tree near a river, in what could have been an attempt at removing evidence.  
『 Police were suspecting drug crime, because of the area, but her son says she never had anything to do with that. I've talked to her a few times before and my assessment would also deem that unlikely. Either way, investigation is ongoing, and they’re keeping her name anonymous, which is probably why you didn’t find her. 』   
『 Yeah, thanks Kiyoko. I’ll update the files. 』   
『 No problem. I hope you find the others with better news. 』   
Kuroo sighed. 『 Yeah, me too. But this does explain the theory a bit. 』   
『 Would you like to elaborate? 』   
『 Your sun siblings. They think the shadows are getting stronger. If a bunch of sun gods are dead, that would make sense. Less warriors to go round and all that. 』   
『 Mmmm, 』 Shimizu nodded.  
『 Anyway, it isn’t really your issue. 』   
Shimizu blinked and frowned at the camera. 『 Is everything alright? What's bringing all this on? 』   
『 Uhhhh. 』   
『 Tetsurou? 』 she said, her voice gaining a register of 'stern'.  
『 I take it you haven't talked to Yachi in a while? Not that she would tell you, I suppose. She knows you're busy and all. 』   
Shimizu's eyes went wide. 『 What happened to her? 』   
『 Nothing too terrible. We think. She got bit. By shadow things. We’re kinda trying to figure out what’s going on. 』   
He noticed the look in her eyes and put up his hands 『 But we don't think it's life threatening. It was just a good reason to keep looking for any missing people, you know. 』   
She sighed, face sad and serious. 『 Is there anything I can do? 』   
Kuroo shook his head. 『 Not really. You have enough on your plate, and Suga and me and even Oikawa are on the case. Just keep an eye out for sun gods, I guess. Preferably of the medical persuasion. You might have a better chance of running into them, I dunno. 』   
She nodded, soft smile on her lips. 『 I will. Take care, Tetsurou. 』   
『You too, Kiyoko.』

 

* * *

 

 

The few days between Yachi Hitoka's decision to ask Yamaguchi out for a picnic, and the actual date they had agreed on, were uneventful. She would get up and go to the university to fight and then she’d fall asleep in her office. She should probably tell Suga about that part, but she didn’t want to worry him any more than she already had. Besides, he’d been notably absent from chat due to working double shifts all week.  
The main issue was that she never really made it to the diner, what with all the passing out.  
And while she wasn't too sad about avoiding the angry, accusing glare of Tsukishima, and she figured it wouldn't be too bad to give Yamaguchi some space, she also didn't want him to think she was ditching him again. This culminated in a whole lot of wringing hands over text messages, and how to word them.

Right now, however, most of the hand wringing was over the picnic she was attempting to complete.  
The edamame beans had been the easy part.  
The cutting of veggies and fruits had also managed to produce no blood.  
Rice balls, she could do. She was actually quite proud of how they had turned out, with the little nori panda faces she had stuck on them.  
She'd been doing really well, to be perfectly honest.  
Which was why it felt so defeating that the oil currently bubbling away on her stove seemed so opposed to the idea of frying chicken.  
She'd tried twice, and both times the pot had exploded like a sparkler stick, causing her to duck behind the refrigerator until the aggressive splashing died down and there was nothing left but a sad and very dark piece of former chicken.  
She should have known from the very start that the fried chicken would be an ordeal. She had made the decision, possibly the mistake, of looking up recipes online, only to find that there was a whole world of greasy poultry out there, that she never knew about. It made her decisions that much harder because now she had to worry about whether she should go for classic Japanese style fried chicken, or choose something more exotic, like Philippine style or American or even Korean. From what she'd gathered, the difference was in the marinade and the type of batter.  
So really, all of it.  
And when she frantically searched the internet for a solution to her current splashing predicament, she'd found rants on whether to use corn starch or potato starch or flour and she hadn't even _considered_ using potato starch, but apparently that gave a much better crunch and she had to actually step away from the computer for a minute to de-stress.  
It would be fine, she told herself. Just like Suga said. Everything would be fine.  
She lowered the temperature of the pot a little, as the internet had instructed her.  
Then she took a deep breath and went in for her third try.  
It involved dressing up like some kind of jousting knight in kitchen attire, with a large lid in one hand, and tongs held in a long oven mitt in the other as she carefully grasped a piece of floured chicken and held it over the pot like a sacrifice to a volcano god.  
She dropped it in and quickly sprang back.  
The chicken crackled. The oil foamed. But other than that, things seemed fine.  
Eyeing it suspiciously from behind her pot lid, she waited for the chicken to gain a nice golden colour, and then took it out to drop it in the sauce. An overwhelming sense of achievement flared up in her.  
She had just fried chicken. Her mom would be so proud.

 

* * *

 

“What's this one called?” Yamaguchi Tadashi said.  
He was lounging on the sofa, sipping the Saturday Morning Special, aka whatever fancy tea Tsukki had decided to brew.  
“Sencha ariake,” Tsukki said from the armchair. “Are you going to remember that?”  
“No,” Yamaguchi admitted. “But it seemed like you'd want to talk about it.”  
Tsukki rolled his eyes. “It's roasted. That's why the flavour is milder.”  
“Ohhh,” Yamaguchi said. “Well, it's nice.”  
“It is.”  
The stairs creaked and soon after, Kageyama shuffled through the door.  
“Good morning,” Yamaguchi waved.  
“Hey.”  
Kageyama walked up to the fridge and poured himself a glass of milk.  
He put it to his lips and gulped it down, glaring at the world around him with the angry stare of a war god.  
Yamaguchi would never understand how that guy could drink milk so aggressively.  
“Big plans for today?” he asked.  
“Meeting someone. A... friend.”  
“Nice,” Yamaguchi hummed, while next to him he could practically feel Tsukki bristling with snark.  
“Friend?” Tsukki asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.  
“Tsukki...”  
Kageyama emptied his glass and dropped it on the counter, not giving his room mates another look as he strode out of the room.  
“Bye.”  
Yamaguchi raised his eyebrows at his friend.  
“What?” Tsukki said, and Yamaguchi shrugged, turning back to the tv.  
“Maybe I should bring coffee this afternoon?” he pondered. “Like a thermos of it. Yachi-san likes coffee.”  
“Correction. Yachi-san likes lattes.”  
Yamaguchi smirked. “Mmhmm.”  
“It's not exactly the same thing.”  
“Well, maybe I'll make a thermos of latte.”

 

* * *

 

Yachi Hitoka lugged her bag into the park to find that Yamaguchi was already waiting for her at the spot they had agreed on, third tree from the path, just a few metres from the pond. He had two bags with him and an apologetic smile on his face.  
“Hello Yamaguchi-kun!” she said, a little out of breath.  
“Hey, Yachi-san,” he smiled back. “Uh, do you need help with that?”  
He stepped up to help her carry the bag and then lifted the large box out when they'd spread out the blanket. “Wow, you worked hard,” he said. “There's a ton of food in here!”  
“Well, I wasn't really sure what you'd like so I brought a bunch of vegetables and fruits because that's healthy, but then I figured you'd want something more solid so there's also omelet and fried chicken, and rice balls, because we need something filling, and then I thought maybe you wouldn't like the cooking because you do this for a living and I don't so I'm probably terrible so I also brought, uh, crackers and cheese and, uh, olives. I don't know why I brought olives. I'm sorry.”  
She stammered to a halt, face heating up.  
He beamed at her. “This looks lovely! A bit much for two, but then there's leftovers for tomorrow.”  
She smiled. “Uh, thanks. What's in all those bags?”  
“Oh, well, uh. I made you a thermos of latte, because I thought you'd like it, but then this is a picnic and I didn't know if you wanted a cold drink so I brought barley tea, but what if you didn't like barley tea, so there's also soda and, uh, plain water.”  
He rubbed the back of his neck and caught her eye before they both burst out laughing.  
“Ok, so maybe we need to plan this sort of thing a bit better next time,” Yamaguchi said. “You know, if there is an, uh, next time.”  
Yachi nodded happily and snapped her expendable chopsticks apart. “Well I hope you like it. And I'm sorry but I spent all morning cooking and now I'm starving.”  
“You're supposed to sneak some here and there, Yachi-san,” Yamaguchi said mildly, watching her nibble on a piece of chicken. “Anyway, thanks for the food!”  
And he grabbed an adorable looking riceball.

 

* * *

 

Tsukishima Kei sat at his desk in his small room and decided to test the limits of godhood.  
It seemed the right time for it. He was alone in the house, so there was no one to blast through doors. The windows were closed to keep out any aggressive fowl.  
He grabbed a small notebook that was leftover from his uni days, and a pencil.  
“ _Dear Yamaguchi_ ,” he wrote in neat, straight lines, “ _your_ -”  
The pencil lead broke.  
Of course.  
Classic.  
He moved on to a ball-point pen and noticed, grabbing it, that he'd left a mug of tea on his desk.  
Right. Convenient.  
He got up and moved the tea to his bedside table, feeling very smug on his return.  
Alright. Empty desk, lamp moved out of the way but not so far that he couldn't see. Just him, this notepad and a ball-point pen.  
“Dear Yamaguchi, your _date is_ ”  
And his pen stopped writing.  
He nodded. He had anticipated this.  
He opened a drawer and picked up a piece of charcoal he'd nabbed from Kageyama. This stuff could crumble, and he'd still be able to write with the dust.  
With a self-satisfied huff, he returned to his paper.  
“Dear Yamaguchi, your date is _a Goddess._ ”  
He froze, dared a breath.  
Nothing happened.  
Huh.  
That... worked.  
Tsukishima looked around to see if anything was catching fire, but that didn't seem the case.  
He turned back and looked down at his writing.  
Splotches of red dripped on the paper, smudging the single, varied sentence.  
“Oh for...” He leaned back, holding his now bleeding nose.  
He _never_ had a nose bleed. The last time anything like this happened was when he was hit in the face with a volleyball during a school practice match.  
Pinching his nose shut, he ran off to the bathroom to clean up.  
By the time he came back, his notepad was a mess of blood and smudges. Any sentence once on there completely illegible.  
Tsukishima sighed and chucked the paper.

 

* * *

 

“Fries,” Yamaguchi Tadashi said apologetically. “I really like fries, but not when they're hard and crunchy. They need to be sort of soggy and... floppy.”  
He risked a glance at his date, wondering if she had taken off to the hills yet. Luckily, she was still there, looking at him with interest.  
“It's weird, I know,” he added.  
“Oh! Nono, it's not,” she waved her hands. “I mean ok, it's a little weird because most people like the crunchiness but-”  
He snorted.  
“But it's not _that_ weird!” she said.  
“Thank you for the vote of confidence, Yachi-san,” he grinned, and she deflated a little. “Your turn," he said. "Favourite food.”  
She seemed to ponder, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them.  
“Fugashi,” she finally said.  
“Oh really? The snack things?”  
“Yes,” she smiled. “I know that's probably also a little weird, but they remind me of home. When I was little, my mom would work a lot, like she'd usually already left by the time I woke up, but she always made me bentos. And she'd put these little packets in.”  
“That sounds very sweet of her,” Yamaguchi said.  
She nodded. “Mm, and now whenever I feel a little melancholy, I tend to have one of those. There's like a big pack in my kitchen at all times.”  
“Do you miss home a lot?” Yamaguchi risked.  
Yachi shrugged. “A little. I grew up further north. By the sea. It was very pretty there, like in the evening you could go walk the beach and the sand would stretch out forever. But I didn't have a lot of friends and I kinda like Kyoto. It's... cozy.”   
“Cozy and also huge,” Yamaguchi nodded. “I get what you mean.”  
“You're not from here either, are you?” Yachi asked.  
He shook his head. “Tsukki and I both come from Miyagi. We went to school there together.”  
“It must be nice to have a good friend like that.”  
Yamaguchi snorted. “He can be a handful. But yeah. Tsukki is super cool.”  
Yachi looked off into the distance. “I have friends like that. Cool ones. But they live far away.”  
“Do you miss them?”  
“Sometimes,” she shrugged. “But it's nice to know that they show up when it's really necessary.”  
“Like when you got hurt?” Yamaguchi asked.  
She smiled and nodded.  
“Well, that's good then,” he said. “You need someone to take care of you when you're sick.”  
“So is there anything you don't like?” Yachi muttered. “For, uh, future reference.”

 

 

Yachi Hitoka and her date talked about all the things they liked, and all the things they didn't like, while around them, the park cleared. She felt like she was really starting to know this handsome man with the cute freckles and the reckless life plans.  
She was so engrossed in his stories about that one time he and his friend snuck into the backstage area of Tsukishima's favourite band, that she didn't even notice how the sky overhead darkened.  
It didn't really register until she felt a dull throb on her wrist and she blinked up to see that there was no more sun, and it was about to rain.  
“Oh noooo,” she said. “I didn't bring an umbrella.”  
Yamaguchi, next to her, startled as well. “Hmm, we should probably get packing and go indoors,” he said.  
The first drops of rain fell from the sky by the time they had put away all the food and rolled up the blanket. They hastily retreated from the park and cleared the trees just as the water came pouring down.   
It was not a cloudburst that had been forecast. She'd have known. She had definitely checked the weather.  
As they ran through quickly clearing streets, she saw that she was not the only one being surprised.  
Shopkeepers were frantically putting away their stalls and closing sunroofs. Cafes and restaurants were full of dripping people looking at the puddles and streams gathering outside.  
“What do we do?” Yachi asked, as they stopped underneath a bridge. “We can't stay out like this. We'll catch a cold. I should have brought an umbrella. We're going to die of pneumonia at this rate.”  
“Maybe we can catch a bus,” Yamaguchi said.  
“Oh!” Yachi said. “I live fairly close. We could wait it out there? I don't want to send you off all wet. It's my fault.”  
“I really don't think this is your-” Yamaguchi started saying, but she grabbed his hand and whatever words were going to come out next stuttered to a halt.  
“It's right this way,” she said. “Are you ready to run?”  
He smiled at her. “Now who's the adventurous one?” he asked. “Let's go.”

They ran.  
Rain poured down, forming small rivers on the pavement as cars piled up, stuck in an endless loop of bad vision and beeping horns.  
Yachi would be worried, or miserable, or cold, but instead she felt very much alive. She felt like giggling, maybe splashing around like a small child.  
Yamaguchi's hand, bigger, sturdier, was warm in hers, and whenever she looked back to see if he was still ok, he smiled at her, eyes twinkling from beneath a mop of wet hair.   
They reached the entrance hall to her apartment soaked to the bone and out of breath.  
“Hah- Ya-chi -huff- I didn't know you could run that fast,” Yamaguchi said, leaning against the wall. “Your legs are like – hoo - way shorter than mine.”  
“It was raining, Yamaguchi-kun,” Yachi pointed out.  
He looked at her face and laughed. “Good point, good point.”  
“Please come in.”  
She opened the hallway door and led Yamaguchi up the stairs and into the tiny apartment.  
“Please don't mind the mess, I wasn't expecting visitors.”  
“It's super clean here,” Yamaguchi noted. He seemed a bit uneasy, standing there, as he dripped water in a small puddle on the hardwood floor.  
“Towel!” Yachi exclaimed, and she ran into the bathroom. She came back out with one towel around her head, and a whole stack in her arms.  
“I don't know if I have a spare set of clothes for you. Probably nothing you fit into,” she said sadly, and she put a towel down on one of her kitchen chairs, ushering him to sit.  
“You don't need to give me spare clothes, Yachi-san,” Yamaguchi chuckled.  
“I'd still like to put your clothes in the drier, at least. This is probably super uncomfortable,” she said.  
She took a big fluffy towel and wrapped it around herself, putting another one around Yamaguchi's shoulders.  
“It's fine, Yachi-san,” he said mildly.  
She pulled out yet another towel and started rubbing his hair. “I just don't want you to catch a cold, Yamaguchi-kun,” she said and he looked up at her with soft eyes.

This felt like something out of a k-drama, Yachi thought, as she was suddenly aware of what she was doing.  
She could just see his deep brown eyes peek from underneath the pink flowered cloth and she couldn’t help but smile.  
“Yachi-san.”  
She stopped and looked down, brown eyes finding hers.  
It happened almost in slow motion. His pupils dilated, she could hear his breath halt.  
His lips parted, just a little. Yachi felt herself lean forward, chest stuttering.  
She stopped before fully reaching him.  
One second.  
Two seconds.  
The both of them frozen in time.  
And then Yamaguchi took a deep breath and leaned back.  
“Thank you,” he said, clearing his throat, “for the, uh, the hair.”  
Yachi bit her lip and smiled. He was blushing, the freckles on his skin nearly fading in the darkened background.  
“That’s ok,” she said, heart swelling just a little.  
It was ok, she thought. They had time. The pacing was all their own.

He took the towel off his head and Yachi giggled. “Your hair is sticking up everywhere,” she said when he gave her a questioning look.  
“Oh.” His fingers shot to his head, combing his wild tresses.  
“I like it.”  
More blushing.  
“Why don’t I make us some tea?”  
“Mmm.” He nodded and she got up, seeking a little distance to make the heat in her chest go down.  
She entered the small galley kitchen and turned on the kettle, grabbing a teapot and two cups.  
Her hair was wet, clothes clinging uncomfortably to her small frame. But she felt super warm. It was almost like her skin was on fire.  
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.  
“Wow,” she said softly to herself.  
She brewed the tea and finally took another breath before entering her little living room. Yamaguchi, wrapped up in too many towels, was looking at the books and movies on her shelf.  
“You have 'Kiki's delivery service'?” he remarked when she came in. “I love that movie.”  
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she said, nodding happily while she put down the tray.  
And so they talked. Over tea.  
And all the while Yachi felt warm and comfortable, like she was swaddled in soft sheets. Or possibly soft towels.  
Yamaguchi didn’t comb his hair all afternoon, his tangled tresses wild and untouched, poking at the ceiling.  
She smiled at it, and he grinned back.  
His freckles stretched across his face, stars spanning the universe.

 


	13. Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yachi feels comfortable, if only for a very short time.

«We went on a picnic.»  
«Cute,» Suga said. It was seemingly his first evening off in a while, so he lay on his couch in crumpled clothes with a glass of something that looked very alcoholic.  
«And then?» came the voice of Oikawa. He was in some kind of bathrobe, which seemed odd to Yachi, considering it should be somewhere early in the afternoon where he lived. «Give us the details, darling, don’t leave me hanging.»  
«Pretty sure she just doesn’t want to tell you, Oikawa, you’ll just call her a teenager again.»  
«Su-chan, do cut the salt,» Oikawa teased. «I realize you hate your life, but you don't have to drag me down as well.»  
«Excuse me?»  
«I mean, should we be worried? You’re drinking yourself to death in your living room on a Saturday evening.»  
«As opposed to getting drunk in clubs, for a living.»  
«I do NOT drink for a living. I have a lively social life, and I’m a social drinker. That means I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not the sad one lying on my couch trying to forget life.»  
Suga sighed. With some effort, he sat up. «I’m pre-gaming,» he said.  
He downed the rest of his glass in one gulp and peered at his screen. «How’s the bite?»  
«Pre-gaming for what?» Oikawa balked in the background.  
«The same as always,» Yachi said.  
«Been attacked by any particularly crazy shadows lately?» Suga asked, ignoring the increasingly high pitch on Oikawa.  
She shook her head. «No.»  
«Good. I haven’t been able to get much progress on it, but I think Kuroo has also taken an interest.»  
«Thank you. That’s ok. Please don’t worry too much about me.»  
«Well, let me know if it gets worse, ok? You still have enough water?»  
She nodded.  
«Pre-gaming for WHAT?!» Oikawa yelled.  
«Poker game.» Suga stood up and walked off.  
«You’re playing poker. After a double shift. While drunk.»  
«I can easily destroy these people, Oikawa. Gotta give them a fighting chance somehow,» Suga’s voice said from somewhere off screen.  
«You could try not cheating, Su-chan.»  
«I don’t _cheat._ »  
«Oh really?» Oikawa sounded indignant. «By human standards or…»  
«Just because I beat you that one time…» Suga came back wearing a clean shirt and grinned in the camera. «That was more your fault than mine, Oikawa.»  
«Oh yes, the all-seeing eye of the sun god totally doesn’t happen to help him playing poker,» Oikawa huffed.  
«Who was the big fancy god here, again?»  
«I use my powers for _good_ , Su-chan. To protect us and all that. Not to win at poker.»  
«I should probably be happy you didn’t try to curse me with bird attacks for beating you, I guess,» Suga grinned. «Anyway, I’m off. Yachi, get some rest, ok? You still look a little pale.»  
«No, stay here and tell me about this boy,» Oikawa pouted.  
«I’m sorry, Oikawa-san, but I really should get to bed.»  
He sighed wearily. «Leave me, why don’t you.»  
Frowning, Yachi closed her laptop.

 

* * *

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi came home to a quiet house. No one was in the living room, so he put the soda bottle back in the fridge and poured a glass of barley tea while silently grinning to himself.   
Outside, the rain had started up again, softly drumming on the roof.  
His clothes were damp, his hair a mess. He felt amazing.  
His cheeks hurt a little from the wide smile that had crept up when he left Yachi’s apartment. It had been lodged there, refusing to leave, all the way home.  
He should probably do something about the whole ‘wet and shivering’ thing though.  
Finishing his drink, he peeled off his drenched shirt and headed up to the bathroom.  
He took a long shower, and then decided he may as well take a long bath.  
The pouring water filled the bathroom with a pleasant amount of steam and Yamaguchi leaned back against a wall waiting for it to fill.  
He should think of something nice.  
Maybe cooking for her? She seemed mildly impressed by his skills.  
Cooking together, perhaps. His mother had always told him it’s a good sign of compatibility if two people can cooperate on something.  
He’d need the house to himself, though. He wasn’t quite ready to have Yachi deal with the weirdness that was the Tsukki-Kageyama combo.  
The stairs creaked when he stepped into the tub. Two sets of feet. He frowned but thought nothing more of it, as he sank into the warm water.

When he climbed into bed an hour later, still mildly giddy, Tsukki hadn’t come home yet.   
He lay under the covers, hugging a pillow, and listened to the sound of what seemed to be an animated conversation going on above him.  
Kageyama must have brought that friend of his, or maybe even a prospective buyer, but there was an awful lot of shouting and stumbling around.  
Yamaguchi wondered briefly if he should ask them to turn it down when he could suddenly hear the very distinctive word ‘Dumbass’ and all became quiet.  
Huh.

 

The next morning, he blearily shuffled down the stairs to the living room to find Tsukki passing him, face a petrified mask of confusion.  
“G’morning Tsu…ki?”  
Tsukki nodded and wordlessly walked on, turning into the bathroom.  
“Long night?” Yamaguchi tried, but the door had already slammed shut.  
Scratching his belly under his shirt, he wandered into the kitchen to get a glass of water.  
That's where he found what was probably the cause of Tsukki’s strange behaviour.  
At the counter stood a short red-headed young man. His hair was sticking up everywhere and he was downing a glass of milk.  
“Hi!” he said. “I’m Hinata!”   
“Hullo Hinata,” Yamaguchi murmured, squinting.   
Staring at this guy was like looking directly into a reading lamp.  
Too bright. Too much energy.  
“Yamaguchi,” he said, waving, before grabbing himself a glass. “Nice to meet you?”  
“Same,” Hinata grinned. “Thanks for the milk!”  
Yamaguchi gave him a sideways glance. He was fairly certain he could see a hickey on the back of the guy’s neck.  
“I’d better get back to my store,” Hinata said, pulling on a sweater. “I’ll text Kageyama later. Waking that guy is like trying to raise the dead.”  
“Oh?” Yamaguchi said.  
The implications of this young man being here were still trickling in, making it hard for him to think.  
Here he was, not even managing to kiss Yachi yet. After nearly a year of knowing each other. Meanwhile Kageyama took a few days to-  
He stopped that train of thought with a quick gulp of water.  
“Say hello to Yachi for me!” Hinata said cheerfully, before disappearing out the door.  
Yamaguchi blinked. “What?” 

 

* * *

 

Kuroo Tetsurou sat at his desk, grading homework. He peered at the formulas through his glasses, wondering briefly how one could even get the chemical composition of water wrong. That was like the most famous one. Leave it to class 5B to find the impossible and make it happen.  
『I'm off to the gym.』   
Kai came in, dressed in tight sport clothes that showed off all the things Kuroo liked about him.  
Such as his beautiful eyes.  
『Squash today?』 he asked.  
『Yeah.』 Kai walked closer, dropping a hand on Kuroo's shoulder.  
『HO2?』 he asked, confused.  
『I know, right?』 Kuroo grinned.  
『Well, you have fun now,』 Kai said, placing a soft kiss into the mess of black that was Kuroo's hair.  
『You too, babe.』  
Kuroo sat back and listened to the front door open and close, before returning to the problem at hand, namely teaching Chris from 5B that if you start with HO2, instead of H2O, the end result of this particular experiment would be poisonous gas and not, as was requested, bubbles.  
He wrote down the explanation and moved on to the next paper, when his computer started bleeping. It was a simplified version of Zelda's Ballad of Gales, because Kenma happened to be obsessed with that game when they were coding it.  
He opened the screen.

_Incoming call: Satori Tendou._

Raising his eyebrows, Kuroo opened it.  
『 Yo. 』   
『 Mister Kuroo. It's been a while. 』 The camera flipped on to show a red-haired man with a scruffy looking lumberjack beard, sitting in a dark and rather messy looking office.  
『 Mister Tendou, I wasn't expecting to hear from you. What's up? 』   
『 So informal, Mister Kuroo, 』 the redhead grinned. 『 I am calling you with an offer. A business deal, if you will. 』   
Kuroo peered at the screen over the top of his glasses. 『 I'm listening. 』   
『 I have a story I'd like to tell you. It's a good one. 』   
『 Hmmm. I do like stories, 』 Kuroo said thoughtfully. 『 What would this story be about, mister Tendou? 』   
『 I heard through the grapevine that you were looking for wayward sun gods. This one is very wayward indeed. 』   
Kuroo hummed. 『 Through the grapevine or through the threads of your web, mister Tendou? 』 he asked.  
『 Details, mister Kuroo, details. 』   
Kuroo smiled stiffly. 『 And what would your payment be, for this story? 』   
『 I'm glad you asked, Mister Kuroo. Because I ran into a little... issue, shall we say. Some bureaucratic problems. 』   
『 That sounds unpleasant, mister Tendou. Put one too many legs in one too many jars that would rather stay closed? 』   
『 Something like that. 』 Tendou smiled widely and leaned closer to the laptop 『 I need to leave the country. South America or Africa. In less than a week. Fake passport, 』 he said, suddenly very serious.  
『 That's... a lot of trouble you got into, mister Tendou. 』   
『 Take it or leave it. It's a very good story. 』   
Kuroo frowned. 『 How long have you been sitting on this one? 』   
『 Does it matter? It's still fresh, still a good story. 』   
He pondered for a moment, then nodded.  
『 Here's my suggestion, mister Tendou. I'll get you tickets to Curaçao. Up front. I hear it's lovely this time of year. Not too much bureaucracy, friendly people. I'll arrange for the passport after you tell your story, and only if I like it. 』   
『 Ahh, trade gods. Always bargaining. 』   
『 Like you said, 』 Kuroo explained, grinning widely, 『 take it or leave it. 』   
Tendou pursed his lips. Long fingers tapped on his cheek, hovering in the air like spider's legs.  
『Alright, mister Kuroo.』

 

* * *

 

“Uhh, ma'am?”  
Yachi Hitoka grunted as someone shook her shoulder.  
“Ma'am? Are you ok?”  
“Mrfl?” With a lot of effort, she opened her eyes. She was in her office, peering into the frowning face of the custodian.  
“You realize it's Sunday, right?” he said while she rubbed her eyes.  
“Oh gosh I’m sorry. I just wanted to get some work done,” she apologized.  
The man tilted his head. “Well you're not getting much done like this, ma'am,” he said, turning around. “Please go home.”  
He walked out of the office, shaking his head sadly.  
Yachi sighed and uncurled herself from her spot by the window.  
Droplets of rain dotted the glass pane, distorting the view.  
She stretched and slumped forward. That morning's battle had taken quite the toll. Just when she thought she was getting better, it seemed like the overcast skies were dragging her down again.  
Everything was so grey and it was making her tired and annoyed.  
It was like the clouds had set up shop inside her head as well.  
Frowning, she gathered her notes in her backpack and started putting on her rain coat.  
As she buttoned it up, she could feel a faint buzzing in her pocket.

_Today: 09:35_  
From _**Yamaguchi T.  
** _ “Good morning Yachi-san. I met Hinata today. He says to say hi. That guy is… something else.”

She smiled at the message. The thought of Yamaguchi made her feel a bit better, at least.

_Today: 09:36_  
From _**Yachi H.  
** _ “Good morning Yamaguchi-kun! Oh did he come to visit Kageyama-san? I’m glad those two are becoming friends.”

_Today: 09:39_  
From _**Yamaguchi T.** _   
“Yeah, they’re, uh, friends alright. But he seems nice. Very bright personality. I hope you have a great day today. Just wanted to let you know.”

_Today: 09:45_  
From _**Yachi H.** _   
“Alright Yamaguchi-kun. I hope you have a great day, too! I have to try and work on my thesis again, so I’ll need all the luck I can get. I’ll do my best!”

 

Yachi Hitoka pushed 'Send' and put the device back, smiling. It was a strange feeling, this growing familiarity.  
As she put on her backpack and shuffled through the university halls, she noticed, not for the first time, that getting a text from Yamaguchi did not send her heart into panic mode. Not any more, at least. The wave of happiness that washed over her at the little '+1' on her phone was still there, but it seemed deeper, warmer now that it wasn't offset by cold dread at doing something wrong, at not answering fast enough, or answering too fast, or saying something stupid.  
She felt, for the first time, at ease.

Not that Yachi had a lot of experience at this whole romance thing. Not even at the 'social' thing, if she was perfectly honest.  
She vaguely recalled a boy she 'dated' at fourteen. The two of them would take the bus home together and sit next to each other and barely talk. One time he leaned in to kiss her but she panicked and he got her cheek instead.  
He soon moved on to another girl on the same bus and Yachi was never really sure if she should be upset or relieved that she could go back to quiet contemplation and light novels.  
She'd really only gone on two (2) real dates in her life, before Yamaguchi.  
Both were in her first year of uni and both ended in awkwardness.  
It seemed that that was enough to cement her reputation as 'undatable', at least amongst her classmates, because no one bothered her again after that.

So something like this, this calm growing towards each other, that was new.  
It was pleasant.  
Yamaguchi felt… comfortable. Not the way Hinata and Kageyama seemed to have instantly become familiar with each other, but still, it was there. A slow easing in, gently exploring each other’s personality. Figuring out the likes, the quirks, the fears.  
Not two puzzle pieces snapping together but two trees growing intertwined.  
Yamaguchi didn't feel like dressing up and stressing out to go to some party, he felt like coming home for a cup of tea and maybe a good book.  
He felt like he wouldn't judge her for misspelling a word.  
Was that how it was supposed to feel?  
She'd only ever really felt this relaxed around her family.  
It was around this moment in her thoughts that the big red sign in the back of her head started blinking angrily.  
As soon as he found out the whole truth, it would be all over, the sign blared.  
No way was he not going to judge her for that.  
"Not yet," she whined at it. "I'm not ready yet. Just let me have this!"

 

* * *

 

『There once was a man with no name. So he started collecting them,』 the lively, sing-song voice of Tendou said.  
『 He wore identities like others wear hats: costumes and masks for every occasion.   
He was Michael James to some, Nobuteru Irihata to others.  
Javier Velasquez to you, perhaps.  
He was so many people, to so many people, in so many places.  
He was a doctor, a lawyer, a pilot and a thief.  
He sailed the seven seas, like Ra sending the sun across the sky,  
Never resting, never home, not until night finally fell on his many lives.  
This man had so much money, but none of it his own.  
Like him, it's all buried now, all gone.  
But there is a small village on the Baltic coast,  
tucked away in a forest with the smell of Tallinn on the eastern breeze,  
The good doctor lies there, in a fresh grave under birch trees.  
Nothing but a cheap cross to claim one of his names.  
No riches dress this Pharaoh in his tomb.  
No gold adorns him but the orchids in bloom.  
For his house is locked and no one can find the key.  
There are traps in the garden. Bars on the windows.  
There are curses and hauntings. Rumors and warnings.  
It is sealed and guarded like the pyramids of old and the locals are wise to stay away.  
They left it as a gift, waiting to be unwrapped.  
What treasures lie within? No one truly knows.  
Perhaps it is an old hat, perhaps something more. 』

 

* * *

 

Yachi Hitoka came home feeling like she’d been repeatedly run over by a tractor.  
She shook out her raincoat and climbed the stairs to her apartment, taking off her drenched shoes just inside the door.  
That was twenty hours now, of thick skies and air that felt like inhaling water.  
All she wanted was to go to sleep.  
That was probably a bad sign, come to think of it.  
Yawning, she wandered into the bathroom to put a towel over her hair, when she caught sight of her mark in the mirror.  
It had grown again. Dark spots that looked like bite marks now spread up from her wrist, stopping only halfway toward her elbow.  
That was definitely bad.  
She pulled out the sun water and drenched a bandage in it, noting that the jar was about halfway empty. She should ask Suga for more, she thought, as she wrapped it around her arm, hissing a little at the stinging sensation of it on her skin.  
Sighing, she finished the bandage and wrapped a clean one around it, so that she wouldn’t drip anywhere.  
God, she was tired today.  
She should tell Suga, she thought. But maybe she should just close her eyes for a minute, first.


	14. Candlelight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is an unexpected double date.

Yamaguchi Tadashi performed a final check on the house.   
The kitchen was moderately clean, living room tidied. He had thoroughly scrubbed the bathroom.  
And now he was ridiculously nervous, he couldn't help but note. He hadn't seen Yachi since their picnic on Saturday, but he couldn't really blame her. It had been pouring down for three days, he couldn't expect her to cycle through that just to get coffee.  
Today the skies were clear, at least. It should be fine.  
Tsukki was out of the house, probably off to some concert. He'd promised not to be back until late.  
Kageyama had not shown his face all day, which meant he was a rogue element, but not one that was completely alien or, he hoped, aggressive toward Yachi.  
He looked at his reflection in the kitchen window. His hair stuck up a little, but that was fine.  
More than fine, even. She liked that.

He checked the clock. Three minutes till six.  
He paced through the living room, wondering to himself why he was so nervous. This was not the first time he had invited a girl over. He’d been in long relationships for god’s sake.  
He _had_ this.   
The bell rang at one to six and Yamaguchi only froze for a second, before he went to get the door.  
“Good evening, Yamaguchi-kun,” Yachi said, smiling up at him.  
“Hello Yachi-san, come in, come in.”  
He took her coat and showed her to the extra pair of slippers.  
“I brought chocolates,” she said. “In case you needed desert.”  
“Oh, cool. Thanks!” He took the gift, noticing with a small smile that Yachi was trembling a little.  
Oh man, she was nervous. Of course she was. They both were, that was apparently how this worked.

“So, uh, welcome to the house,” he said. “Take a seat, if you want. Do you want a drink? I have water, obviously, and, uh, tea. Soda, also.”  
“Tea sounds good,” Yachi said, taking in the living room.  
“Sorry that the place is a bit of a dump,” Yamaguchi added, grabbing two glasses. “It’s drafty in winter and too hot in summer but, you know, home.” He shrugged.  
She smiled at him. “It’s nice. Cozy.”  
“That’s one way of putting it, I guess.”  
Yachi walked over to the kitchen table and took a seat. “So what’s the, um, plan?”  
“Well. I thought I’d cook for you, since you already cooked that picnic for me. I have pork, and rice, and a bunch of vegetables. I figured I’d make katsudon?”  
“Ooooh,” Yachi said, duly impressed.  
“Do you like that?”  
“Yes,” she nodded enthusiastically. “Do you want me to help? I could cut vegetables, maybe? Just don’t make me fry things.”  
“Well, I was kinda hoping to not make you do work but-“  
“No, please,” she said, getting up. “I couldn't just sit here and watch you. If you don't mind, I'd like to be your sous-chef.”  
She smiled, a little bit shy. Dear lord she was cute.  
“Oh, uh.. well, sure. Ok,” he nodded. “Maybe you can start by washing the rice and I'll, uh, put out the vegetables. Do you need an apron?”  
She shook her head. “I'm fine.”

They got to work and it was about halfway through preparations that Yamaguchi's nerves calmed down enough for him to notice how smoothly things went. He had started stir-frying things and whenever he turned around for an ingredient it was there, waiting for him.   
He felt a little like a surgeon, working with a professional nurse.  
“Do you have the onions, Yachi-san?”  
“Here,” she said, handing them over.  
He threw them in the wok, sweet smell sizzling up.  
“And the pepper?”  
“There you go, Yamaguchi-kun.”  
She grinned at him and handed him the bowl of cut peppers.  
Whenever he looked, she was there, chopping away or whisking egg or patting flour into the meat. She seemed happy to be here, next to him, at it made his heart perform all kinds of odd bounces.  
He could get used to this.  
It was certainly an ego boost when they got to the frying part of the katsudon, and she hid behind his not-very-broad shoulders.

“Alright, now all we need to do is-”  
A bang at the front door interrupted him.  
“No, dumbass, it’s pronounced 'van gocccchhhh'.”  
“Hahahaha, Kageyama you sound like a cat retching.”  
“I do NOT... oh, hello.”  
Kageyama and Hinata waltzed through the door, mid-argument, and froze when they saw the two people in the kitchen.  
Right. Unknown element. Yamaguchi should have known.  
“Hello Kageyama-san, Hinata-san,” Yachi waved.  
“Yachi-san!” Hinata exclaimed, dropping the grocery store bag at his feet and almost sprinting up to hug her. “It’s been a while! You look so nice!”  
He fluttered around her like a moth to a light bulb, chattering away. “I was a little worried about you until Kageyama told me you were fine and seeing Yama-”  
He stopped mid sentence, jaw slack and eyes wide.  
“Oh my god are you guys on a date? Did we interrupt something?”  
“It's... it's fine,” Yamaguchi sighed.  
“Oh no! Kageyama we interrupted them, they were probably gonna kiss and stuff and now we're here and in the way.”  
“I live here, Hinata,” Kageyama grumbled. “I'm allowed to be here.” He said the last bit with a little less energy than usual.

“Really, it's fine. Welcome,” Yamaguchi said. “We're just finishing up our food.”  
“Uooooh!” Hinata flew over to the stove. “Whatcha making? Oooh, is that katsudon? I love katsudon. Wow this smells good. We were just gonna make some packet curry.”  
“Would you, uh, like some?” Yachi asked.  
Yamaguchi could see Hinata's face light up, but then Kageyama smacked him in the back of the head. “We have our own food, dumbass. Stop scrounging.”  
“It really is ok,” Yamaguchi said. He'd seen Kageyama's cooking. The guy was decent as long as he could focus but with Hinata and them all here, Yamaguchi had his doubts about said focus. This was the sort of situation where he would burn water.

He turned back to the stove and took the second piece of fried pork out of the pan, cutting it in strips.   
“I really don't mind,” he said again, watching Hinata's hungry stare. “There's crumbs and egg mixture left over. If you have some meat or something.”  
“We brought chicken!” Hinata yelled.  
As Kageyama rolled his eyes, Hinata came up with the grocery store bags. “We could totally make fried chicken, with the sauce and...”  
“Fine,” Kageyama shrugged, cutting him off. “Please eat, Yamaguchi. We'll take it from here.”  
Feeling doubtful about that statement, Yamaguchi took his plate to the kitchen table and sat down across from Yachi.  
“Thanks for the meal!” she said.  
“Thanks for the help,” he smiled.

It wasn't exactly how he'd envisioned the evening, but the food was good, and Yachi seemed happy enough. They ate and made light conversation, but mostly they both got distracted by the evening's entertainment.   
Hinata and Kageyama argued.  
Constantly.  
It caused Yamaguchi to worry deeply about that pan of hot oil on his stove, but miraculously, they managed to cook a meal. It wasn't even that burned.  
“Mind if we join you?” Hinata asked.  
“Not at all,” Yachi said, scooting over a little. “So have you, uh, been going to watch the sunrise, Kageyama-san?”  
The guy sat down, shaking his head.  
“I took Hinata there one morning, but the place feels really weird. Like... rustling in the trees and stuff. Weird whispers.”  
Yachi's eyes went wide. “Oh no.”  
“So we left,” Hinata grinned, sitting down. “It's super creepy there, I don't know why you guys like it so much.”  
“Well, it was pr-,” Kageyama started saying.  
And then all the lights went out.

“Yeek!” In the gloom of dusk, Yamaguchi could see his date shiver.   
“Alright, that's... unfortunate,” he said, trying to sound calm and comforting. “It's probably just a breaker. Just sit tight while I check it out.”  
And he got up to look outside the window.  
It was getting late, but it was still light out. The sun was just barely down, the sky still a spectacle of oranges and reds. Looking up the street, he could see no street lights, and several people had come outside in confusion.  
“Oh. Looks like it's the whole block,” he said.  
Behind him, Kageyama got out of his chair. “Don't we have candles somewhere?”  
“Yeah, underneath the tv.”  
They shuffled around and soon enough, they were all back at the table, eating dinner.  
Hinata, busy stuffing friend chicken in his mouth, looked up and started giggling.  
“What now?” Kageyama sighed.  
“Guys, look,” Hinata said, gleefully indicating the table. “Candlelit dinner!”  
Kageyama snorted awkwardly and put his hand in front of his face.  
Yamaguchi grinned. It was hard to tell, in the flickering glow of the candles, but he was fairly sure Yachi was blushing.  
Cute.

 

“Let's go upstairs. I feel inspired.”  
Kageyama announced his plan in the middle of Hinata narrating how he used to cycle up and down the hills he lived in as a teenager.  
Hinata looked up. “You're so rude, Kageyama.”  
“Inspiration is fickle,” Kageyama said, and he started collecting their empty plates.  
Hinata snorted. “Inspiration, huh?”  
“What?” Kageyama said, and Yamaguchi had to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing.  
“You could always tell us the rest of the story later,” Yachi smiled.  
“Right! We should probably get out of your hair!” Hinata said, shooting up.  
“That's... that's not what I meant at all,” Yachi started stammering, but Hinata was already grinning widely, clearing the rest of the table.  
“Don't you worry about a thing, Yachi-san! We'll do the dishes tomorrow.”  
“But...”  
“Let's go,” Hinata said, nearly dragging Kageyama toward the stairs. He had a big grin on his face and stopped only a second, to give them a thumbs-up.  
“Goodnight, Yachi-san, Yamaguchi-san!”

The stairs creaked heavily under two sets of feet and then silence descended on the darkened living room where Yachi sat, staring at her hands.  
“I didn't mean...” she muttered.  
“I know,” Yamaguchi said gently.  
“I mean, not that I don't want to be with just you, it's...”  
“I know,” he smiled.  
She went quiet again, fidgeting with her fingers. There was a small pout on her face that Yamaguchi had not seen often.  
It was cute.  
Of course it was. Pretty much all her facial expressions were, he had to admit.

“That was fun,” he said, breaking the silence.  
She nodded. “Mmm.”  
“We should do it again, maybe,” he added. “Possibly better planned.”  
“Yes,” she smiled, looking up. “We do end up on a lot of improperly planned dates, Yamaguchi-kun.”  
“They have gone pretty well so far,” he grinned.  
She gave him a questioning look.  
“I mean, if you don't count the random rainstorm and power outages, we still had a good time,” he said.  
She chuckled.

Above their heads, the light flickered back to life with a soft zooming sound.  
“Oh. Speaking of power outages, looks like it's over.”  
“Mmm,” she hummed, eyes scanning the kitchen with its unwashed dishes and the microwave blinking 00:00 at them in sharp blue led's. “I wonder what time it is?”  
He pulled out his phone. “Oohh, ten already.”  
She pouted again. “Yamaguchi-kun, I'm sorry but I should actually get going.”  
“Right. Early mornings. Both of us,” Yamaguchi nodded, getting up.  
“Thank you for the meal.”  
“No problem.”  
“And the... company and all that.”

Humming, he followed her to the hallway and helped her into her coat.  
She turned around, looking up.  
There was something soft, almost sad in her gaze.  
“Yamaguchi-kun?” she asked.  
“Mm?”  
“Can I hug you?”  
Blinking, he wordlessly opened his arms.  
She stepped forward with a sigh and pulled him close, breathing deeply.  
Yamaguchi stiffened, briefly, before wrapping his arms around her.  
She fitted so neatly against his chest.  
Why did everything this girl do feel so smooth, when she seemed to be so nervous all the time?  
“Are you ok?” he said.  
“You're warm.”  
“So are you,” he grinned, but she shook her head.  
“I don't feel warm at all,” she said.  
“Still a little sick, huh?”  
Slowly, he leaned forward, taking in the smell of her hair, some kind of honey flavoured shampoo. He softly pressed his lips to the top of her head, right next to the flower hair clip she wore.  
It was a light kiss, something that felt natural, that felt right.  
“Ok, now I do,” she stammered as she disentangled herself, face a deep pink.  
“Then it worked,” Yamaguchi smiled.  
Yachi released a long breath and paused. “I wouldn't mind if you did that again,” she said. “I mean, if you...”  
He leaned forward and swept the hair from her forehead, before gently placing a kiss there, as well.  
“Like this?”  
She swallowed. “Exactly like that,” she said, and nodded. “Goodnight, Yamaguchi-kun.”  
“Goodnight, Yachi-san.”

 

* * *

 

 Tsukishima Kei took a seat in the university library and eyed the computer in front of him with a certain level of distrust.   
He'd done his research. He'd left everything but his keys at home.  
The machines in this library were old and nigh indestructible, the actual parts locked behind heavy plastic, double-locked cases.  
The service he'd chosen was encrypted, the kind of stuff used by spy types and, no doubt, online drug dealers. It saved your message in several places, even if your connection failed, and it would try to deliver it no matter what.  
Tsukishima calmly opened it and gave in several addresses for Yamaguchi: his phone number, e-mail, other e-mail, even a random social media account, just in case.

“Dear Yamaguchi,” he typed, and then he looked around. No one in the library was paying him much attention. No patron walking by with a large, teetering stack of books, no one carrying a bucket of water or a pair of clippers to 'accidentally' cut the cord.   
He turned back to his screen and swallowed thickly.  
Then, as fast as his nimble fingers could handle, he started typing.  
“Your girlfriend is a goddess”  
He slammed the 'Send' button.  
For an entire second, Tsukishima thought he'd done it.  
Then his screen went black.  
He blinked. Next to him someone yelped. He looked up and found that the library was suddenly very dark.  
After a confused couple of minutes, in which nothing physically attacked Tsukishima, he carefully stood up and looked around.  
To his mild horror, the power had gone out, and it made no attempt at coming back.  
People were filing out of the library. A woman carrying her crying daughter, some pouty kids leaving behind their comics as they were ushered to the exit.  
An older man at the reception desk with a stack of books was being told to come back later.  
“I'm terribly sorry, but it seems we'll have to close,” the librarian said, “My system is down, I can't check these out. The whole block has gone dark, we don't know when we'll have power back.”  
Frowning, Tsukishima wandered outside.  
The guy hadn't been kidding. The street lights were off. Cars were honking at each other, trying to manoeuvre intersections with no red lights. People were pouring out of the subway station next to the library, most of them lighting their way up the steps with the screens on their phone.

Quietly, Tsukishima walked through the dusk, back to his house. By the time he'd made it to the main street, police were already out in full force to deter looters, but it was barely necessary. It was a nice evening. Still warm, still quite light.   
Pleasant, almost, despite the random chaos caused by a power failure.  
Caused by him, Tsukishima thought.  
He walked further. As it grew dark, people started playing with sparklers. He could see bonfires in back yards, candles in houses.  
It was quite a way home, without public transport, and he must have taken nearly two hours by the time the lights finally came on.  
A television in a shop window sprang into life, showing the local news. “- that right now, power is being restored to most places, after a freak accident caused a citywide blackout earlier this evening. Officials are still investigating, but it seems that a small fire in one of the changing stations near Kyoto could be the cause. We are live with the mayor for a statement.”  
Tsukishima tuned out the sound and kept walking.  
“Point taken,” he muttered under his breath. “Assholes.”

 

* * *

 

«So we may have, um, a problem.» Yachi Hitoka sat down at her desk, shaking slightly.   
The dinner had been nice, and Yamaguchi's soft smile had been super distracting, but now that she was home, and no longer pedalling fast or trying to navigate conversations, or being _kissed_ , because _oh gods_ , the blind panic that had risen from Kageyama's statement came in like a brick through a window.  
«What's up?» Suga said. He was lying on the couch, laptop on his chest. She could see his hair sticking up all over the pillow behind his head.  
«Remember that big dark shadow? The one that bit me, and that nearly got Tsukishima-san?»  
«Did it find you? Is it back?» Suga said, eyes suddenly alert.  
«I think it's still at the temple,» Yachi murmured. «I think it's haunting that forest. Kageyama-san said he doesn't go there any more because suddenly it's creepy and the trees whisper to him.»  
«That's... impossible,» Suga said. «He's normal, isn't he?»  
«Kageyama-san? Yeah, I'm pretty sure he is.»  
«Well that's... Ok, that's weird.» Suga was visibly at a loss. «We can't fight that thing. I've been searching through the Godbook archives, and there's very, very little about shadows. Somehow, we have love gods and goddesses that jot down every single working aphrodisiac known to humanity, but 'how to kill a particularly nasty shadow' is not in any of these stupid theses.»  
He sounded frustrated.  
«I'm sorry. I don't know what to do.» Yachi said, looking at her hands.  
«What you do, is stay away from there,» Kuroo pointed out, leaning into the frame. «You found a new place, yeah?»  
She nodded.  
«As long as that thing doesn't follow you, you should be safe enough.»  
«But it's haunting that place. Probably. What if it attacks people?»  
«Well, it hasn't yet, right?» Suga asked.  
«No,» she muttered, «Not that I know of.»  
Suga sighed. «Ok, we're gonna have to get Oikawa over, aren't we? Gods, I'd hate to be in debt with him. Maybe he can look at that bite, too, while he 's there. Show me your arm?»

«Um.» Yachi played with her fingers.  
«What?»  
«Please don't be mad,» Yachi started.  
«Please just show me.»  
Silently, she rolled up her sleeve. A dark pattern of teeth marks went up to her elbow.  
«Wow,» was all Suga said.  
Kuroo let out a low whistle.  
«It's been raining a lot,» Yachi said. «I'm trying, I swear.»  
«We're gonna have a problem if we don't fix this by winter or something,» Kuroo mumbled.  
«Ah crap, we really are going to have to get Oikawa,» Suga grumbled.  
«And make him do what, exactly?» Kuroo asked.  
«I have no idea. Maybe he needs to blast that big shadow thing. Maybe he needs to flash a smile at it. Anything, really.»  
Kuroo nodded. «I'll see what I can do.»

 


	15. Fireworks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a festival.

 

_Calling: Bokuto Koutarou_

『Tetsu! Bro!』  
The screen lit up and a wide face with spiky, two-toned hair came into view.  
『 Kou! How you doing? Whoah, did you get sunburnt? 』 Kuroo grinned.  
『 Yeah, I may have been out in the sun a little too long. Equator, bro. It's strong down there. 』   
『 Dude, you look like a boilt lobster. 』   
『 Cold, man, 』 Bokuto pouted.  
『 So I guess you're back from Peru, huh? 』 Kuroo asked.  
『 Yeah. Man, it was so cool! You should have seen it! We went to this place in the jungle and it was- 』   
『 Classified, mister Bokuto, 』 a second voice interrupted him.  
Bokuto drooped. 『 Right. It's a big secret I guess. 』  
He sighed. 『 But you should have seen it, bro. There were these traps, straight out of some Indiana Jones movie. 』   
『I think mister Kuroo's lively imagination can fill it in from there, mister Bokuto,』 the second voice droned.

『Yo, mister Akaashi,』 Kuroo smirked.  
Bokuto's face was pulled back from the camera and a second head came into view. He had black hair, small round glasses and a very serious, stiff demeanour.  
『Good evening, mister Kuroo. To what do we owe the pleasure?』  
『What, can't a guy call his old friend?』 Kuroo huffed.  
『You do not usually use office hours for that kind of call, mister Kuroo,』 Akaashi said.  
He reminded Kuroo a little of a bureaucrat. Ok a lot of a bureaucrat. Or some kind of super stiff secret agent. Gods only knew what Akaashi was supposed to be, but right now he was mostly cramping Kuroo's style.

『Well, technically this is a business call. I do so happen to want to hire your... agency.』  
『 Really? Awesome! 』 Bokuto said. 『 What do you want us to do? Uncover some old temple? Get into a pyramid? Is there some document you heard about in the British Library? 』   
Kuroo coughed. 『 I need a dead guy's house raided. 』   
Akaashi blinked at the camera. Bokuto frowned.  
『 That sounds sad. And possibly smelly. 』   
『 He's no longer there, you dumb owl, 』 Kuroo growled.  
Akaashi had taken out a pen and paper, and was taking notes.  
『 So trespassing on private property. 』 He scribbled something.  
『 You don't have to put it like that... 』 Kuroo grumbled. Oddly enough, he was fairly certain that Akaashi had a going rate for this sort of thing.  
『 Dead for how long? 』 Akaashi asked.   
『 I dunno. Not too long, 』 Kuroo said, getting a little embarrassed.  
『 Living relatives? Sealed by police? 』   
『No clue. But probably no, like, heirs. The place is supposed to be trapped. The locals have just kinda abandoned it.』

Bokuto's eyes lit up. 『Traps? And puzzles?』  
『 Probably, yeah, 』 Kuroo grinned. 『 Sneaky stuff, at the very least. 』   
Next to Bokuto, his partner was unphased.  
『 Location? 』 he asked, not looking up from his notes.  
『 Uh, Estonia. 』   
『 Hmmm, and what would be we looking for? 』   
『 God stuff, 』 Kuroo said, and Bokuto grinned.  
Akaashi sighed. 『 God...stuff, 』 he intoned, writing something down slowly.  
『Books, notes, diaries. We think this guy is, or, well, was, an incarnation of Ra. And he was a doctor. He should have some stuff on certain... issues we're having. The eternal battle between good and evil, all that.』

Akaashi pushed his glasses further up on his nose.  
『 Payment? 』 he said.  
『 Uhhh, what do you want? 』 Kuroo asked.  
『 Ooh! Oohh! 』 Bokuto started, but Akaashi silenced him with a wave of his hand.  
『 I'm aware of the currency you deal in, mister Kuroo. But that is not what we need. 』   
Bokuto pouted next to him. 『 Dude. I would LOVE to go to Ibiza. 』   
『 Travel expenses are tax deductible for us, mister Bokuto. 』   
『 But... 』   
『 No. 』   
Kuroo tilted his head. 『 What did you have in mind, mister Akaashi? 』   
『Something a little more... rare.』

 

* * *

 

“Do you think I should wear a yukata?”  
Yamaguchi Tadashi lay on the couch, idly scrolling through his phone. On the little coffee table stood a pot of sencha ariake, and Yamaguchi was very proud for remembering that name, thankyouverymuch.  
“Do you even have a yukata?” Tsukishima said, not looking up from his book. “The last time I saw you in one was in our last year of high school, when we went to that festival in one of your harebrained team building exercises.”  
“You enjoyed that, Tsukki, don't lie,” Yamaguchi said.  
“I never said I didn't. Just that it didn't help teamwork that much.”  
“It was worth a shot,” Yamaguchi shrugged. “We worked hard, that year. We could just have some fun too.”  
Tsukki grunted something along the lines of 'It's just a club' under his breath.

“So anyway, that is the yukata I own, yes. It should still fit.”  
“Where is it?”  
“Uh.... at home. At my parents.”  
“So you don't have a yukata.”  
“Point taken, Tsukki, but what if she comes out looking all cute and I'm there in shorts and a t-shirt?”  
“Have you considered, I dunno, asking her,” Tsukki droned, flipping a page.  
Yamaguchi sighed.  
“I swear you two have been on how many dates now? Do you even know a thing about her? What is it you guys even do? Sit there blushing at each other? Do you actually talk or are you too starstruck to ask questions?”  
“I ask plenty of questions, Tsukki.”  
“Mmmm, so you know why her hours are so weird? Who her best friend is? If she has a medical condition you should know of? What she intends to be doing in five years with a friggin botany degree?”  
“Uh... Tsukki?”  
He put down his book and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I'm just saying, you could stand to question her a bit more. For instance. If she's wearing a yukata tonight, and if you are expected to match.”

 

* * *

 

Yachi Hitoka stood in front of her bathroom mirror and squinted at herself.  
She looked terrible. Horrific even.  
Zombies had been known to look more glamorous than her.  
Her skin was pale and dry, and the bags under her eyes were starting to take up truly unhealthy proportions.  
She pondered briefly if she should just wash her face with sun water, but that felt like a waste.  
This is what make-up was invented for, she told herself. She patted powder on her skin until she looked somewhat more alive, and bandaged up her arm. It was much the same as it had been three days ago, when she'd shown it to Suga.  
The marks reached up to her elbow now. No more, no less.  
The weather had been spotty the last few days, with a few hours of sun here and there, interrupted by overcast skies. This meant the mark hadn't really grown, but it was merrily sucking out all her energy nonetheless. And there was too little sunlight to replace it.

She could cancel, she knew, and Yamaguchi wouldn't hold it against her.  
Probably.  
But the thing was that she didn't _want_ to cancel. She wanted to get as much of this as she possibly could, before it would inevitably come falling down.   
Date Five. She'd never made it this far.  
She'd been in uncharted territories without a rudder for Days and she was holding up really well and she just needed to see how far she could take this.  
Wanted to, really.  
By the power of Yamaguchi's freckled smile, she was going to make it through this.

 

* * *

 

“Good evening, Yamaguchi-kun!”  
“Wow.”  
Yamaguchi Tadashi grinned like an idiot when his date walked up to him, wearing a sundress and a cardigan, morning glory pin proudly in her hair. In the muted golden light of early evening, she looked completely adorable. Like some kind of idol.  
“Hello, Yachi-san. You look very pretty tonight.”  
She smiled happily, like she was almost relieved at the compliment. “Thank you. So, uh, do you. Did you wait long?”  
“Not at all,” he said. “But the smell is starting to get to me already.”  
She sniffed delicately and nodded. “Yes, that smells delicious. Wanna go look at the stalls,” she asked and her hand almost instinctively sought his.  
Squeezing gently, he walked with her to the fair ground.

 

It was around eleven, as they wandered between the fairy lights and brightly lit stalls selling meatballs and fried squid and mochi, that Yamaguchi started to notice.   
Yachi's hand, warm and small, fitting perfectly inside his, seemed to have gotten a little colder, and the girl herself a little slower.  
He looked down and he could swear the glow, so bright a few hours earlier, had left her face. Even in the light of the torches flickering orange across her skin, she looked a little pale.  
“You ok?” he asked, “you seem a bit under the weather. Wanna sit down?”  
“Mmm. I'm fine. Just a little tired.”  
“Do you wanna go home? I know you've been working hard.”  
She shook her head. “I wanted to watch the fireworks,” she said. “It's traditional.”  
“Traditional, huh?” he grinned at her.  
“I mean,” she played with her fingers, obviously embarrassed. “When I was a girl I read a lot of.... novels and the characters in them would always have these adventures and these awesome dates and they'd go watch fireworks together, so I kinda...”  
“You want to watch the fireworks with me?” Yamaguchi asked, smiling.  
She nodded meekly.  
“Mk, but why don't we go sit down somewhere. Maybe on that field over there?”

He bought drinks and sat with her in the grass, feeling very much like a character in some romance novel now. He hoped it was one of the better ones, not the kind that dragged on because the main characters were completely oblivious to one another, or one of those novels that ended in heartbreak because the girl'd had cancer all along.  
He shook his head, trying to clear that particular thought from his mind.  
“So,” he asked instead. “Do you want to be a botany professor yourself?”

Yachi talked about her plans for the future, and how she didn't really have any. She'd kinda rolled into her current career, and maybe half expected to just potter along doing research.   
She'd like that, she said, a quiet life of studying plants, hopefully being left alone by mean professors.  
Yamaguchi chuckled.

Half an hour later, the first fireworks were set off, and he got to watch a hundred colours explode into Yachi's eyes.   
It was a cliché, he thought, but a good one.  
One that merited being repeated over and over again, he thought, as he saw the flickering coloured lights reflect off her skin.  
“Yamaguchi-kun, look,” she said, pointing up. “That one looks just like a sunflower.”  
Smiling softly to himself, he looked up at the sky as it burned in flashes of red and yellow and orange.

 

“Yachi-san?”  
The fireworks had ended and Yamaguchi sat on the grass in the now very stark darkness. Overhead, stars spanned the sky, growing brighter by the light of a sliver of moon.  
His date, next to him, seemed unresponsive. He leaned closer.  
“Yachi-san, are you o-” A soft snore escaped her.  
Oh.  
Ohhhhhh.  
He knew about this. This was basically what happened when she crashed her bike, wasn't it?  
When Kageyama had to carry her to the bike shop.  
Oh dear.  
He looked around at the festival, with its dispersing crowds, and wondered briefly if he should get help.

“Yachi-san?” he tried again, and he shook her shoulder.  
“Mm?” she hummed.  
“Yachi-san, the festival is over. We should get going. Are you ok?”  
“M'fine. Just a little sleepy.”  
“You're, uh, very sleepy, it seems,” Yamaguchi muttered.  
He looked around again, mild panic growing in his stomach.  
Should he get an ambulance? That would be overdoing it, wouldn't it? She said she was fine.  
But here he was, sitting next to an unconscious girl.  
Were people going to think he drugged her? Was he going to make a scene?

Next to him, his date was leaning against his arm, sighing softly. Her breathing was steady, deep. Her eyes were closed. She looked for all the world like she was asleep.  
He held her wrist up and tried her pulse. Her skin was a little clammy but her heart was beating just fine.  
He felt her forehead. Cold.  
He should get her somewhere warm.

 

* * *

 

 

The whole endeavour took twenty minutes and was far from elegant.   
First he had to carry her home, and that took some doing.  
Yachi wasn't exactly heavy, but she was unwieldy and about as cooperative as a sack of potatoes.  
He didn't want to go full bridal style because honestly, he didn't have the muscle for that. He didn't want to carry her fireman style, because that was... that would have turned heads, surely.  
The only option was to make her piggyback, but because she wasn't even conscious; she kept slipping, so he had to stop every few metres to adjust her.  
Luckily, he made it to her building without much trouble, or too many weirded out passers-by.

He tried to wake her up a few times when they reached her building, but all she did was say 'I'm fine' before nodding off again.  
So he took a deep breath and rifled through her purse to get her keys, .  
He opened her hallway door and carried her up the stairs, wondering briefly to himself if a romance character would do this, and if said romance character's arms were also sore.  
Finally, he deposited her into her own bed, fully dressed, because there was no way he was going to go _that_ far.

He gently put a blanket up to her shoulders and leaned in, placing a soft kiss on her forehead.   
Then his eyes shot open when he suddenly realized what he was doing, and he stood back, blushing.  
Should he leave? Maybe write a note?  
Last time she'd been out of it for a while. What if she woke up really sick?  
He thought, again, of getting her an ambulance, and then of the bill and the scolding if it turned out that she was really just a very heavy sleeper.  
The girl had three alarm clocks in her otherwise very tidy bedroom for god's sake.  
“Right,” he said under his breath. “I'll just.... stick around a little. To make sure you're ok.”  
He tiptoed out of the bedroom and left the door slightly ajar.

Yamaguchi wasn't sure what to do with himself, so he sat on the couch and watched tv for what seemed like a few hours.   
A stumble some time after midnight told him Yachi was awake.  
Looking up, he saw her coming through the door, bleary and rubbing her eyes, blanket folded around her shoulders.  
She had no right to be that cute, Yamaguchi thought.  
"Yamaguchi-kun?" she whispered, voice raspy with drowsiness.  
“Hey,” he said. “Sorry for taking up your couch. You fell asleep at the festival so I took you home, and then I was worried so I wanted to make sure you were ok.”  
“Oh gosh I'm sorry,” she muttered, shuffling closer.  
"It's fine," he smiled.

Her hair was messy, eyes a little puffy, the skin of one cheek wrinkled from where she'd lain on the pillow. He found himself staring, unable to stop the shivers running through his veins and the goofy grin threatening to split his face.  
“Do you want to go to a doctor?”  
She shook her head. “I'm fine,” she said, and she pattered over to the couch. "What are you watching?"   
"A movie. Shaolin Soccer," he answered as she plopped down next to him.  
"Is it any good?"  
"Mmm, it's ok."  
She leaned against him, head drooping.  
"It's about this guy…."  
He looked down to see Yachi's head against his shoulder, eyes closed and breath soft and slow.  
His chest swelled. Little particles of pure, unadulterated joy shot in all directions.  
Gently, he placed his arm around her shoulder and leaned back, getting comfortable.  
She scrunched up her face, rubbing her forehead on his chest before settling in.  
Hoo boy, he was in deep, wasn't he?  
If Tsukki saw him like this, he'd be so annoyed.

 

Love wasn't about big moments.  
That's what Yamaguchi's grandmother once told him.  
It's not about grand gestures, last minute airport chases, fireworks and fancy weddings and kissing each other in the rain. Although some of those moments should probably also be had.  
But the thing with big moments, his grandmother told him, is that when they're over, you're just the two of you again.  
You have to live. Together.  
You have to cook and sleep and clean and work.  
You can't chase grand gestures all your life.

Yamaguchi understood this.  
He knew from experience that a quiet love was calmer, more comfortable than the ones in movies.  
It was about little things, about being there for someone, about coffee in the morning, a smile and a glance before work, a soft kiss in the evening.  
It was finding someone who would listen, eyes sparkling, while you talk about your obsessions, and who would sit quietly with you when none of you had anything to say.  
He recognized in Yachi someone who was looking for the same thing. A quiet love that appreciates who you are, lets you be what you are, but helps you grow into the places where you aren't.  
Someone to come home to.  
And right now, sitting in her darkened apartment, watching a muted movie about magic football, he desperately wanted to be there for her.

 

 


	16. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we go to Estonia.

A rental car drove through the wooded hills just west of Tallinn. The grey sedan followed the road as it curved, snaking in and out of the forest. At times the asphalt emerged from the trees, only to travel dangerously close to the cliffs, as if it wanted to taste the sea air and throw its hair in the wind, gasping at the open views of the Baltic Sea.

『It’s very pretty here.』  
『It is, mister Bokuto.』  
Akaashi Keiji tried to keep his eyes forward, concentrating on the narrow, winding road.  
『Should be around here somewhere,』 Bokuto said, next to him.   
He was squinting at a map, trying to trace their progress. A paper map, as Akaashi had instructed.   
He wasn’t fond of being traced.   
Even for a mission such as this.  
Especially for a mission such as this. You never knew the trouble a bunch of gods could get you into.

Their target, mister Velasquez, was buried in the cemetery in the middle of the town a few miles behind them, underneath a red brick church with white awnings.   
Or so Akaashi assumed.   
He’d resisted the urge to visit said grave, not wanting to draw attention to the both of them until they were ready to leave.   
Mister Bokuto had a unique set of invaluable skills, but ‘being inconspicuous’ sadly wasn’t one of them. Keeping him out of trouble was a priority in missions such as this. 

Annoyingly, the grave and the location of the house was about all Akaashi knew about their charge. His contacts had been able to dig up unpleasantly little.   
Javier Velasquez was an enigma, and he seemed to attract little scrutiny, despite the fact that he was an obvious foreigner in a tiny town in Estonia.   
Paperwork in his name had been filed for a doctor's practice somewhere in the early eighties. His taxes had been perfectly in order and paid in time, despite the fact that the man didn’t seem to be open for business much. The good doctor was apparently abroad a lot.  
But he rarely travelled under his own name, because there were no records of him boarding planes or crossing borders.

He wasn’t, Akaashi thought, an actual spy.   
But considering the location and the dodgy behaviour, he assumed that the people around Velasquez probably thought he was.   
A bad one, at that. An obvious one. The kind that would probably get blown up sooner rather than later, either by the Russians or the Americans.  
So they left him alone.  
As a disguise, Akaashi had to admit, it was almost brilliant. 

 

The road bent back towards the coast, but just then, an unhardened path on the left led deeper into the woods. A small plastic plaque, partly hidden by leaves, announced a doctor’s practice.   
Akaashi turned into the path and followed it, up the flank of the hill.  
He parked the car behind a bush just a few metres from the estate’s entrance.  
『 Take the small backpack, 』  he said.  『 And tread carefully. 』    
『 Yeah, Kuroo said there’s traps, 』  Bokuto nodded, face glowing with delight.  『 This is so cool. 』   
They carefully walked up to the large double gates. Iron. Hard to climb. Humming… softly?  
『 Don’t touch that, Mister Bokuto, 』  Akaashi said.  『 Let’s go around. 』

Electrified fences weren’t exactly rare in a place with wolves, he assumed, though the one he found around this small estate was especially impressive.  
『You think he has a generator? 』 Bokuto asked as they trundled through the woods.   
『They would have turned off his electricity by now, 』 Akaashi nodded.  『But a generator can only last so long before it runs out of gas. He’s been dead for a few weeks at least. 』   
『Huh, 』 Bokuto hummed.  『Then what? 』   
『We passed power lines like a kilometre from here, 』 Akaashi said.  『He might be tapping off. 』   
『Ooh, are we gonna cut off the power from the station? 』   
『That… sounds very dangerous, Mister Bokuto. 』

They ended up walking around the mercifully small estate twice, before Bokuto spotted a breaker cabinet that seemed to be the source of power to the fence. Three well-aimed silenced shots later, the buzzing had stopped.   
『 Give me a lift, 』  Akaashi said.   
His friend hoisted him up with a muffled grunt and blinked up at him owlishly while Akaashi, less graceful than he’d like, climbed over the fence.   
『 I’ll see if I can open the gate from the inside. 』   
He found the gate controls in a small shack nearby, which required even more breaker wrangling to get going.  
Bokuto clapped when he got it working.   
『 Go get the car, please, 』  Akaashi said.  『 There’s an overhang here we can store it in. And close the gate when you get back. I’ll see if I can break into the house proper. 』

 

His partner nodded and Akaashi turned back to the building, which, he feared, was not particularly easy to break into.   
Kuroo had warned for traps, true. But he had failed to detail what these traps might be.   
The manor house was old, erected probably in some centuries past, with heavy stone walls and a wooden frame at the top.   
But it seemed like mister Velasquez had added extra security measures. Like iron grates over the bottom windows, and various pointy bits making an ascent to the second floor if not impossible, then at least highly unpleasant.   
Akaashi was starting to wonder who the hell this person was supposed to be. 

He cut off the lock on the storage shed and searched around until he found a suitably sturdy looking ladder, which he placed against the back wall.   
Bokuto came to find him, carrying their bag of tools.   
『Can you hold the ladder, please?』 Akaashi said, slinging the bag over his shoulder. 『Hold tight, because I don’t know what to expect up there.』  
『Aye aye cap’n!』 Bokuto grinned.  
Akaashi rolled his eyes and climbed up, carefully avoiding the wrought iron pins placed around the awnings. Still, they snagged on his overalls, ripping the fabric. 

He reached a window on the second floor and carefully tapped it. From outside, he could see that there was some tube attached to it, but there was nothing he could do about that now.   
He pulled out a glass cutter and made a circle, before punching it out.   
He frowned. Something was hissing.  
Wide eyed, he rushed back down, to the waiting Bokuto.   
『Gas! He put gas in the windows! What the hell,』 Akaashi said.   
『Wow. What do we do now?』  
『We wait. It’ll disperse soon enough, but me and mister Kuroo are going to have Words about this. This is some next level security.』  
『Like that one temple in Nepal, Akaashi?』 Bokuto said, face pained at the memory.  
『Ok, not as bad as that,』 Akaashi had to admit.  
He took a seat and opened the other backpack. The one with the thermos of tea in it. Carefully, he poured out a cup. Then he took a biscuit out of a side pocket and crunched on it.   
This was going to be a Project, he suspected. And whatever Kuroo was paying them, was probably not enough.  


About ten minutes later, with his cup of tea now finished, he climbed back onto the ladder. There was still a small black parcel attached to the window lock. He cut it off.   
With free access to the window, he opened the lock and slid it open.  
『Crack! 』  
A loud bang, and a very bright flash.  
Akaashi startled. He instinctively jumped back. The ladder rattled.   
He only barely managed to grab a lower rung, and held on for dear life while he waited for his heart to retreat back to his chest.  
『You ok there, Akaashi? 』   
『Flash bang, 』 he said.  『Flash bang on the window. I already don’t like this person. 』   
『Seems like he’d be really good at keeping away thieves.  
『He would be, yes. 』

Taking a deep breath, Akaashi climbed back up, and slipped through the window. His feet touched the floor and he froze. He was in a hallway, soft carpet on the floor. Pulling out a flash light, he carefully shone it across the floor and up the walls.   
Would this person put traps in his own living areas? Maybe, if he was nuts enough.   
He leaned out of the window.   
『Wait there for a sec, 』 he said.   
『Awww. 』   
『Just hold the ladder. 』  
Soft-footed, he paced down the hallway where miraculously, nothing tried to kill him. He carefully descended the stairs down to what turned out to be the kitchen, and crossed to the hallway.   
He breathed. Ok. So far so safe.   
Akaashi unlocked the front door and then retraced his steps, heading back into the kitchen, and picking the key off the shelf next to the back door.   
『We’re in, 』 he said, popping his head out the door.  『Please put the ladder back. 』   
『Sure. 』

Akaashi grabbed both their backpacks and deposited them on the kitchen table, sniffling a little a the smell.   
Mister Velasquez had been a cleanly enough person, but he’d apparently died unexpectedly, while out on the town. It was fairly obvious no one had been here in weeks.  
A stale loaf of bread rested in a paper bag on the kitchen counter, two unwashed dishes and some cutlery in the sink.   
Akaashi decided he didn’t want to check the fridge.  
Instead, he made a tour or the house. From the kitchen, smelly, to the dining room: dusty, obviously rarely used. It smelled of antiques in there.  
At the front of the house was the doctor’s practice, and, on the other side of the entry hall, a living room with a tiny tv and electronics that hadn’t been updated since the eighties.  
『 Check out the office, 』  he told Bokuto when he came back in.  『 I’m heading back upstairs. 』

 

Documents. That’s what they were told to look for.   
Obviously that would be it, if Kuroo went to the trouble of contacting Bokuto.  
And based on how careful this guy was, they were probably well-hidden.  
Akaashi climbed the stairs again and diligently opened a few of the doors down the hallway. Bathroom, master bedroom, small bedroom, library.  
The library was a fairly obvious dud, filled with mostly medicine textbooks and airport novels. Most of those with the stickers still on.

Akaashi frowned, retraced his steps.   
There was definitely another floor. He’d seen windows underneath the roof.   
He double-checked the ceilings. No hatch.   
He started tapping walls. That’s where Bokuto found him a few minutes later.  
『Nothing in the office, and nothing in the basement but a bunch of fancy wine and like… jam and stuff. 』   
『Ok, thanks. 』   
『What are you looking for, Akaashi, 』 Bokuto asked, tilting his head.  
『Stairs, 』 Akaashi said.  『Up. 』 He pointed to the ceiling.  
He thought for a moment. 『We brought the density meter, yes? 』  
Bokuto shrugged.  『Probably. I’ll get it. 』

 

The panel was, and Akaashi had not seen that one before, hidden behind a coat-hanger in the bathroom. It swung open, bathrobe, pyjamas and all, to reveal a narrow, steep wooden staircase.  
『Bingo,』 Bokuto whispered, eyes lit with a delighted fire.  
He grinned widely. 『Let’s go?』  
Akaashi nodded and shone his flash light up the stairs. They ended in a hatch with three heavy bolts holding it in place.  
Odd, Akaashi thought, climbing the steps. It’s almost like Velasquez wasn’t trying to keep people from the attic, but was instead trying to keep whatever was up there, well, up there.

As he climbed higher, he could swear he heard voices.   
There were whispers, like the rustling of leaves in the wind. Only not.  
『Uh, mister Bokuto?』 he said, voice slightly higher than he’d like. 『Do you hear something?』  
Bokuto tilted his head, listening intently. Then he swallowed. 『That’s, uh, not you, is it?』  
『No.』  
『Well shit.』  
『Alright,』 Akaashi nodded, and he pulled out his gun.   
Slowly, painstakingly, he moved one of the bolts and then waited.  
Nothing.  
He moved the second one, and the third, and finally, after another nod to Bokuto, he lifted up the hatch, aiming his gun through the slit before emerging from the hole.

 

The attic was… odd.   
The floor, once wooden, no doubt, was a mosaic of mirror shards. The vaulted ceiling had been painted in pearl grey and from it, several dozen small mirrors and shards hung, dangling from ribbons and chains and string.   
Late afternoon sun streamed in through one of the windows and reflected on a thousand different surfaces, turning the whole space into a glittering wonderland.  
『 Whoah, 』  Bokuto said when he pushed his head through.  『 Disco. 』

On the walls, mister Velasquez had placed more mirrors, and several giant bookshelves, old cupboards and filing cabinets.   
And all around the room, very noticeable now that they both stood here, was the pervasive whispering.   
Like water rippling.   
It was almost as if the books themselves were angry.  
『 What  _is_ this place? 』  Akaashi muttered.  
『 I dunno, but it’s super weird, 』  Bokuto said. He wandered off to one of the shelves and was eyed one of several jars standing there.  『 I think this is where that whispering is coming from, 』  he said, shaking the jar and holding it to his ear.  
『 Don’t open that! 』  Akaashi shouted, and Bokuto frowned.  
『 Akaaaashi, 』  he said indignantly, putting his hand on his hip.  『 What do you take me for? After all the stuff we’ve gone through together. 』   
He put the jar back with a pout.  
『 Alright, alright. I apologize, mister Bokuto. 』   
『 Huff, 』  Bokuto said.  
『 Of course you’re much smarter than this, 』  Akaashi soothed.  『 You’re a true adventurer. 』   
『 Damn right I am, 』  Bokuto said, perked up.  『 Let’s get started, shall we? 』

He took off his backpack and dropped it in the middle of the floor. The room wasn’t big, but there was a very clear, open space in the very middle, almost like it was made for it.  
Akaashi shrugged. If this Velasquez man was a reincarnated god, it probably made sense to him.   
He inspected the shelves as Bokuto started unpacking. There were medical journals here, history books with lots of bookmarks sticking out, bunches of newspaper clippings, geographical maps and diaries.   
Lots and lots of notebooks, too, filled with a small, neat lines of some kind of cypher script.  
Akaashi frowned and took one of the books to a window, staring at the pages.   
Hieroglyphics.  
Holy crap they were all written in hieroglyphics. This was gonna be an absolute pain to decipher, Akaashi groaned.

In the middle of the room, Bokuto had pulled out his gear.   
It was a piece of cloth. More specifically, a sheet. The kind you buy in second grade housewear stores.   
It had motivational lyrics on it, because Bokuto liked that sort of thing.   
Akaashi should probably be happy that it wasn’t sports themed or worse, Star Wars themed.  
On it, Bokuto had painstakingly drawn a circle in textile pen, and then he’d filled said circle with strange symbols and phrases.   
Mesopotamian.   
Or so Akaashi had been told.

 

Bokuto smoothed out the sheet and pulled out his pack of LED candles, carefully turning each one on before placing it around the circle, twelve in total.   
Akaashi always kind of assumed they were mostly there to weigh the sheet down. It was efficient and certainly looked the part, but none of it felt ‘real’.   
You’d expect fire candles. Because of course you did.   
And then he’d thought of Bokuto surrounded by a bunch of real life candles, and the resulting fire hazard, and he was really happy that this whole business worked just as well without them.  
Bokuto placed the final candle, and the circle flashed with a very faint light.   
Then he stood in the very middle, feet slightly apart, and closed his eyes. He concentrated and somehow, this otherwise stifling attic picked up a draft. The mirrors and shards on the ceiling swayed and tinkled, dust from the shelves kicked up. 

Akaashi stood by the wall and watched. Even after having seen it a few times, he was still in awe. There was something regal about Bokuto at a time like this. He could feel the air thicken around him and Bokuto seemed to float a little, hovering in the air. He opened his eyes, now almost luminescent.  
『 To your right, top shelf, third book from the right. Red cover, 』  he said, and Akaashi turned to pull the book from its place.  
『 Second shelf, sixth book from the right. Black cover, 』  Bokuto went on.  『 Bottom shelf, second from the left, brown cover. Cabinet on the other side of the window, middle shelf, second- 『   
『 Hey, woah, slow down, 』  Akaashi shouted, rushing around trying to collect all the books.   
『 Behind me, third shelf from the bottom, sixth book from the right, white cover, 』  Bokuto continued, so Akaashi ran.   
『 White cabinet, top shelf, second and third book from the left. 』   
And on and on, until Akaashi, in his hurry, pulled a book with just a tad too much force, just a little too much carelessness.   
The jar next to it rolled over and fell, crashing to the floor.  
Akaashi froze.   
『 Black cabinet, bottom shelf, tenth book from the right, 』  Bokuto said, and the stopped.

Akaashi stood by the wall and tried not to breathe.   
He was fairly certain he’d heard a sigh, but nothing else was happening.  
In his circle, Bokuto flopped to the ground, shaking his head. He eyed the stack of books nearby while Akaashi inched slowly away from the wall.  
『 Wow, that’s a lot of stuff! Cool! Uh… why are you doing that? 』   
『 I, uh, we broke a jar, 』  Akaashi whispered.  
『 Ohhhh. Oops. Is that... how bad is that? 』   
『 Nothing’s happening. 』   
『 Should… something happen? 』  Bokuto said.  
『 I don’t know, mister Bokuto, but we just broke a jar that whispers. I would suppose something were to happen. 』   
『 But it didn’t. 』   
『 No. 』   
『 Whelp, no worries then, 』  Bokuto said, getting up and rolling his neck. 

He stepped over to the black cabinet and picked up the last book, carefully avoiding the shards on the floor.  
『Ooh,』 he said. 『This guy really liked shiny huh. Look, the inside of the jar is also mirror.』  
『Hmmmm,』 Akaashi said, sitting down next to the stack of books.   
He opened a couple.  
『We’re going to need someone to translate this,』 he said, peering at row after row of illegible hieroglyphic.  
『Look, this one’s in English,』 Bokuto said, showing him what looked like an academic journal.   
It was typed on an old fashioned typewriter, and obviously meant for someone to use.  
‘Findings and study on the subject of Shadows’, it said on the cover, and the pages were filled with figures and experiments that made very little sense to Akaashi. He tried to read it, while next to him Bokuto sat down for a cup of tea and a biscuit. 

 

Outside, the sun was slowly going down, but in here, the light reflected in the many mirrors was plentiful. The yellows and pinks and purples of the sky bounced off the many surfaces in the attic, turning the whole thing into golden splendour, like a dragon’s hoard.  
Akaashi felt a soft smile come up, sitting here in golden light, with the soft crunch of Bokuto eating biscuits next to him.   
He went to look back at the page when his instinct kicked in and his head shot up.   
『 Mister Bokuto? 』  he said quietly.  『 Did you just move? 』   
『 Hmmm? 』  Bokuto blinked, mouth full of crumbs. He shook his head and swallowed. Loudly.

In the silence that followed, Akaashi was again reminded of the fact that there was no silence.  
The whispers seemed to be getting louder, they were almost… chanting.  
Alarmed, Akaashi got to his feet.   
Outside, the final rays of the sun were drowning beneath the Baltic Sea.   
Inside, that shadow over there was definitely moving. Akaashi drew his gun.  
Wait, you couldn’t shoot shadows, what did you…. Flash bangs, he thought, and he groaned. 

Now that he was watching, he could see it happening clearly.   
They came, initially, from the hatch back down. The darkness seemed to inch its way into the room like black water bubbling up from the ground.   
It pooled in the shelves and underneath the jars. The shadows seemed disoriented, confused by the many sparkling shards in this attic, but soon the sun and the last light would be gone. 

Akaashi put away his gun and switched to his flash light. He shone it at a shadow creeping across the floor and it dodged with a hiss, not stopping its path.  
『We need to get out of here,』 Akaashi muttered.  
『I’m not going near that hatch,』 Bokuto said.  
『Well what do you suggest, then!』 he shouted, exasperated.   
『Take my hand?』 Bokuto stood up and held out his hand, inviting him in. 『Magic circles are supposed to protect, yeah?』  
『If you’re wrong…』  
『Then we jump out of the window and run for it,』 Bokuto grinned.  
『That is a terrible idea, mister Bokuto.』  
『Then this one is better,』 Bokuto said, waving him over.  
Sighing, Akaashi took his hand and stepped into the circle.  
He almost immediately felt safer. It was the magic, he supposed, or maybe the candles, but the shadows gathering outside, oozing out of the shelves and dripping from the ceiling, didn’t come near them. 

 

Akaashi sat cross-legged, his back against Bokuto’s, and assessed the situation.  
On the bright side, they seemed safe. There was a wall of black swirling around inside the attic, but the circle was some kind of magic threshold they couldn’t cross. They had a thermos of tea, and some sandwiches, so they could easily survive the night.  
On the down side, the circle was a small space, and Bokuto was getting fidgety from sitting in an uncomfortable position for too long. 

『So this is the kind of thing sun gods deal with?』 Akaashi said, trying to distract him.   
『I guess? It says here in this book that Velasquez caught them. Big ones. Fancy ones.』  
『Like that dark one roaming around outside?』 Akaashi asked.  
He’d been peering at the storm outside the circle, and had ascertained that shadows came in classes. The regular ones, who whispered and undulated and were generally creepy and disgusting, and then the other one. It was somehow denser than the others, it was stronger, and it sang.   
Akaashi didn’t know what exactly it was supposed to be, but it seemed to command the others. It attracted them, drawing them to in as they built it up, a darkness deeper than black.  
『Yeah, that may have been the jar one,』 Bokuto said, and Akaashi felt a small pang of guilt.  
『How do we fight them, you know, not being sun gods,』 Akaashi asked.  
『Well they’re supposed to just go away at sunrise.』  
『So we just wait?』   
He could do that, he supposed. It was better than the ‘jumping out of the window’ plan, and he had come up with zero alternatives.  
『Hey, at least the nights are short here in summer,』 Bokuto hummed.

 

 


	17. Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a confession.

Yachi Hitoka lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling.  
«Kuroo-san?»”  
«Yes, kitten?»   
Yamaguchi had made her breakfast. He'd stayed up all night to make sure she was ok, and then he'd made her coffee, and while she had long since forgotten that she even had oat flakes in her pantry, he'd found them and cooked oatmeal for her.   
She lifted up her hand to touch her forehead. The imprint of the kiss he'd planted there right as he went home was still lingering, she was sure of it.   
It was hot to the touch, almost like it was branded there.  
«How many people know about your... condition?» she asked the ceiling.  
Kuroo, in his tile on her screen, peered at his camera over his glasses.  
«I take it this is about your boyfriend?»  
«Is that what he is?» Yachi wondered.  
«I think we can safely assume that's what he is by now.»

Boyfriend. She liked the sound of it.   
And she really, really liked the thought of it.   
She sighed and rolled over. «I'm going to have to tell him.»  
Kuroo put down the book he was reading. «Well, your power _is_ pretty hard to hide, with the whole...» his hand made swishing motions in the air, «getting up at dawn to fight the dark type deal. Yeah.»  
«He deserves to know.»  
«That too, I guess,» Kuroo hummed.  
She pouted and buried her head in her arms.  
«I don’t want to lie to him. He deserves to know. I just don't know how.»

Kuroo sighed, carefully folded the edge of his page and closed his book.   
«There's two,» he finally said. «And a half. Normal people. That know.»  
«And a half?» Yachi frowned.  
«Well, sorta. First, there's Kenma. You've heard of him, he helped me build this site.»  
«Mmm.»  
«Our parents would go on holiday together when we were kids and he was there when some weird lady approached me on a beach to tell me I was a god. I still haven't figured out who that was, by the way, but, well, she wasn't wrong.»  
«That sounds creepy,» Yachi said.  
«It was, which is why Kenma stayed close, I guess. We kinda figured out the whole power thing together.»  
«Mmm. Lucky.»   
«Indeed,» Kuroo said. «The half one was my roommate at uni, who may or may not have figured certain things out but who has chosen not to discuss it,» he went on. «And then there's Kai, who you're probably asking about.»  
Yachi nodded. «He seems to have taken it well. How did you tell him? I just don't know where to even start. I don’t think I can just go 'oh hello Yamaguchi-kun, I’m sorry but I've been lying to you this whole time'.»

«Uhhh,» Kuroo said, leaning over the armrest of his chair. «Ok, so don't tell Oikawa this, because I really like to be able to lord at least this one thing over him, but I told Kai twice. Mostly by accident. The first time was when we were both shit-faced drunk and I started rambling to him about it as we walked home from the bar. The next morning was... awkward. Pro tip: do not do this.»  
«I don't drink alcohol, Kuroo-san.»  
«Excellent. Great life choice,» Kuroo grinned. «Now the second time was much later, when I'd already pretty much decided I wanted to marry this guy. So I made us both a nice dinner, calm atmosphere, and I was like 'remember when we were drunk two years ago and I started rambling about how I was a messenger to the gods, yeah that was real'. Like that. And that was a... long conversation, and I ended up having to prove it by getting us reservations the next Saturday at an overbooked, hip restaurant in Wellington that two regular shmo's like us should never be able to get in, even if we booked six months in advance. But I managed it. At a discount even. That one kinda got him to believe me.»  
Yachi chuckled. «Kai-san is very smart, isn't he?» she smiled.  
Kuroo gaped like a fish for a few moments. «I... only just realized that that was probably a ruse. He'd been wanting to go there for ages. That bastard!»  
«I'm glad it worked out for you, Kuroo-san,» Yachi said, smiling, «but I'm afraid I'm not that smooth.»  
«This level of smooth does take practice, kitten,» Kuroo nodded seriously. «But I don't think your boy requires smooth. He just needs you to be you.»

 

* * *

 

 

_Sunday 17:16_  
From: _**Yachi H**_.  
“Hello Yamaguchi-kun. Did you get some sleep? Thanks again for staying over to watch last night. You really shouldn't have and I'm so sorry to worry you. I'm also sorry to bother you again after such a short time, but could we... meet? I'd like to talk to you if that's ok.”

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi arrived at his girlfriend's apartment (was that what she was now?) about ten hours after he'd left it, feeling nervous.   
He wasn't, it quickly became apparent, alone in fighting his nerves.   
Yachi brought him upstairs and made him tea, fiddling with her fingers and avoiding his gaze all the while.  
“Please, sit down,” she finally said, and as if she was talking to herself, she plopped onto the couch opposite him, before taking a deep breath.  
“Yachi? What is this about?” he tried when she proceeded to quietly play with her fingers again.  
Her head shot up. “Yes. Right.”  
She sucked air and let out a long breath.  
“So, uh, you've been super nice to me and I, uh, I really rather like you a lot so I, uh, wanted to tell you something.”  
Yamaguchi gulped. That sounded both incredibly flattering and very, very ominous.   
Yachi breathed again.   
“Um. So you know how I’ve been all sleepy and woozy on rainy days, or at night, and sometimes I’m out for a few days,” she started, looking at her hands.   
She looked embarrassed, not willing to meet his eyes, and all Yamaguchi could think of was ‘please don’t be cancer’, because it sounded like she was about to tell him she was dying.  
He swallowed and put down his tea mug. “Yes?”  
“Ahem, so the reason for that is this,” she said, and she thrust her wrist out to show him.

He frowned, because there was nothing there other than a mild discolouring.   
“I'm not sure I follow,” he said, carefully.  
She nodded, and walked up to the window, closing the curtains. On her way back, she turned on a lamp and sat before him again. She held out her arm, head down.  
Yamaguchi didn’t really know what to do, so he looked at her wrist. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the mark on her skin grew darker. The few spots that had been there a minute before grew deeper, almost auburn, and they spread.  
At first it looked like a bite mark, like some dog had taken hold of her wrist and she’d torn it out of its mouth. But then it started travelling up her arm, teeth marks and scratches forming a pattern almost to her elbow. He’d seen chew toys in better condition, and it was very strange how something that painful looking didn’t bleed. There was no torn skin, no scabs, just a dark bruise.   
“What… is that?” he squeaked.  
“It’s a bite,” Yachi said.   
“What kind of…”  
She got up to open the curtains again and took another deep breath.

“It’s a shadow bite,” she said. “From, uh, the shadows of night. That I fight. Every morning. At sunrise. Because, um, I’m a goddess.”  
She pressed her lips together and looked at her feet.  
Yamaguchi blinked. On Yachi’s arm in front of him, the mark was fading again.  
“Uh. What?”  
“I understand that this is… hard to believe, and I’m afraid I can’t show you anything fancy to prove it, other than maybe sun water, but I’m not even the one that made that so-”  
“Wait, waitwaitwait. Slow down,” Yamaguchi held up his hands. “Shadows? Goddess?”  
She bit her lip. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”  
“What…. goddess?”  
“Um, well, you see,” she said, “I’m the modern incarnation of the Greek goddess of sunrise. Eos. Which isn’t technically a goddess, I suppose. More like a titaness? The classification is a mess, and it’s not like we can ask the originals, and I’m not that big a deal really, but-”  
“Yachi,” he said, frowning. “What?”  
“I’m sorry.” She put her head down again.

Yamaguchi wasn’t entirely sure what he felt, but it was very close to that point where Wile E Coyote runs off a cliff in the cartoon and only figures out halfway to the other end that he was walking on thin air and now he's about to crash down.  
That rapid, helpless flailing as everything disintegrates around you. Yamaguchi could suddenly relate.   
“I’m sorry, because I lied to you, or at the very least sort of… kept this from you. And that was mean because you should probably know about something like this but it’s not like I could just tell you this before I knew I could trust you but now you probably hate me or think I’m nuts and-”  
‘Yachi,” Yamaguchi said again, softly, and she stopped abruptly, drawing in a shuddering breath.  
“You’re right, that’s a bit much to believe,” he added.   
She sighed, shoulders sagging.

Yamaguchi's thoughts were quickly being replaced with static.  
Three days gone. The weirdness of the mark. How she was busy in the morning, even though uni didn't start till nine. Kageyama finding her crashed and passed out. How she was always a little tired on rainy days, but full of life in sunlight.   
It fit, but that didn’t mean it made sense.  
She was looking around, anywhere but at him, and while that was usually cute, it really wasn't helping right now.   
His mind flailed, looking for a foothold.  
“Does anyone else know about… this?” he tried.  
“Oh, uh… several people, um…” she fidgeted with her hands. “There's my brother, though I suppose he's not _technically_ my brother, and Kyoko-san and Kuroo-san and Oikawa-san and Yukie-san, I suppose and... Tsukishima-san…” she almost whispered it.  
“Tsukki knows!?” That one hit him like a brick. “How… why. What?”  
“He, uh, found out one morning. He saw us doing, uh, god stuff. But I'm afraid my friend kind of cursed him and…” She trailed off.  
The only thing left in Yamaguchi’s head was static.   
“You… you know what,”, he said, and he got up. “I’m sorry but I’m going to have to think this over for a bit.”  
“Yamaguchi-kun…” She looked like she was about to cry. He felt bad for her, he really did, but if he stayed here any longer he’d go nuts.   
“Thank you for telling me. I’ll see myself out.”

 

* * *

 

 

Yachi Hitoka watched the door to her apartment close, and felt like her life and every inch of hope she’d ever had just jumped off a cliff.  
“Oh no,” she whispered softly.   
She'd gone too fast, she knew. It had taken a lot of winding up to get started and then it had all come out in one go, like milk bubbling over and burning to the stove.   
“I messed up.”

 

* * *

 

 

The entire walk home, Yamaguchi Tadashi’s head buzzed like an old fridge.   
There were a ton of possible implications to what Yachi had told him, and he didn't like any of them. She could be delusional, which meant she needed help. This could be some kind of weird joke, which would make her a whole lot meaner than he had anticipated.   
Or the whole thing was real, which was ridiculous, especially if Tsukki was in on it, because that was...  
He'd rather not name that particular feeling.

 

* * *

 

 

«So he's a doctor and of course he falls in love with his patient, because ethics in medicine go straight out the door when you're in a tv show. Obviously,» Suga's voice said angrily.  
«Mmhmmm,» Kuroo Tetsurou hummed.  
Suga was sitting on his couch, ranting about a show he was watching that he may or may not hate. Kuroo wasn't entirely sure at this point. All he knew was that Suga had Opinions about it.  
«And the most ridiculous part is he's basically like... she has this friend who is in what amounts to a new age cult, trying to get her into a very dodgy program for-»  
«Kuroo-san!» Yachi's tile in the messenger flipped on. The girl's eyes were red, her face a dribbling mess.  
Kuroo looked up from his book.   
«Oh kitten…» he said.  
«What in the hells did you do?» Suga switched from angry tv rant to angry sibling with a speed that would impress Kuroo, if the anger wasn't aimed directly at him.   
«I didn’t do anything,» Kuroo huffed.  
«Then why is she crying?» Suga demanded, frowning at his screen. “Yachi, what happened?”  
«Yamaguchi, most likely.» Kuroo said, as Yachi helplessly sobbed in front of her camera.  
«Yamaguchi? What did he do?» A dangerous glint appeared in Suga's eye.  
«It’s… not… like.. that,» Yachi hiccuped. She was sniffling, obviously having a hard time getting her breath back.   
«I told him.»

«Oh.» Suga sat back and turned off his tv.  
«He didn’t take it well, huh,» Kuroo soothed.  
«He hates me. He must think I’m crazy and I lied to him and I’m mean and he hates me and I’m going to die alone and he'll still hate me. I’m never going to make friends or date ever again. I’m done for, unlovable and-»  
«Ok, ok, calm down,» Suga hushed. «What did he say?»  
«He said he needed to think about it.»  
«That…. doesn’t sound too bad?» Kuroo pondered.  
«He seemed really upset about Tsukishima-san and he was pale and-»  
She gasped for air.   
«I understand you’re upset,» Suga said, in his most nurturing voice, «but maybe you have to trust him a little. He said he needed to think about it. So let him think about it. It’s a pretty heavy story to process, you know.»  
«I mean, it’s not that great a sign that he didn’t want to talk it out with her,» Kuroo muttered. «But then they only know each other for a few weeks.»  
«A year.» Yachi interjected, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, «Almost a year. We’ve only been dating for a few weeks but we've» she hiccuped «known each other for a year.»   
«Ok, but you haven’t known each other _well_ ,» Suga said, shooting a glare at Kuroo. «Let him process it.»  
«It would be better if-» Kuroo started.  
«Shhh,» Suga hissed. «At least he’s not calling the cops on her.»  
«Ah yes, I forgot how high your standards are.»   
«Shut it, errand boy,» Suga growled, before switching to his calming voice again. «Yachi, I think it's best if you give this a little time. Don't abandon all hope just yet, ok?»

 

* * *

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi entered his living room, breathing heavily.   
He crumpled onto the couch opposite Tsukki and huffed at the ceiling.   
The walk, no, the run home had calmed him down a bit, but his insides were still churning.  
“What’s up?” Tsukki said.   
Yamaguchi sighed.   
He’d come to a few more conclusions on what had been said, what had happened, and what would happen, and most prominently at the forefront of his mind was this: _Tsukki was never going to believe the goddess thing_.   
What the hell was he even thinking. Yachi was clearly unstable. That was by far the most logical explanation for all of this and as soon as he would tell Tsukki he’d get the Smirk and the ‘I told you so’ and that would be the end of it.  
But still, part of him clung to the idea that what she had said sounded... logical. Somehow.  
“Everything ok?” Tsukki mumbled.   
“Yachi just told me she’s…” Yamaguchi faltered. He should just drop it. This was stupid.   
But Tsukki froze and stared at him.   
“Did she tell you something?” he said, slowly.  
Yamaguchi frowned, and Tsukki quickly looked away, back to his book.   
“I mean, that's why you went there, didn't you?,” he said. “Because she wanted to, uh, talk.”   
He coughed awkwardly.

Yamaguchi squinted.   
Tsukki was rarely interested in the general world and it’s goings-on. For about 85 percent of the time, Tsukki could not care less, which meant that him _pretending_ to be uninterested during one of the rare times that he definitely wasn't, was never going to get past Yamaguchi's radar.   
“You, uh, ok, Tsukki?”  
“Yes?” Tsukki coughed again.  
“Ok, so this is going to sound stupid, but she thinks she’s a goddess,” Yamaguchi said.  
Tsukki shot up and looked around like a deer that had just heard a rustling in the bushes.  
“Tsukki what are you doing?”  
“Say that again, Yamaguchi?”  
“Look, I know it’s dumb,” Yamaguchi started, but Tsukki was full on staring at him now. It was mildly creepy.  
“Please just say it again.”  
“Yachi says she’s a goddess.”  
Tsukki held his breath and slowly looked around the room. Then he blinked, pushed his glasses up his nose and sat down again, visibly relaxed. “About time,” he said.

Yamaguchi sat there with his mouth open for what felt like a full minute, while Tsukki calmly flipped a page in his book.   
Then all of the rage and confusion and sheer shock seemed to bubble over all at once.  
“So you knew? Like… you KNEW?” Yamaguchi shouted.  
He was angry now. He’d never felt this betrayed in his life.   
Why in the blazes did these two people, who by all accounts meant a lot to him, decide that he was the very last person who should know something as big and ridiculous as this.   
“Why didn’t you tell me!!?”  
Tsukki turned his head to him, face a shroud. “I tried. Several times. I was… dissuaded.”  
“What? What does that even mean?”  
“You’ll remember those birds? The kids on the bike? _The power outage that took out most of Kyoto_?”  
Yamaguchi froze, pieces in his head falling into place.   
“Oh my g- I mean... frig.” he muttered.  
“Exactly.” Tsukki nodded. “Gods are assholes.”

 

* * *

 

 

_Monday 10:34  
_ From: __**Yachi H.**   
“Hello Yamaguchi-kun. I’ll, uh, leave you be for today. Feel free to text me if you have any questions or would like to talk.”

 

 

“Two orders of french toast, honey on the side.”  
Yamaguchi Tadashi nodded. “Coming right up,” he said.  
He took a deep breath, straightened his apron, and grabbed two eggs.   
Then he blinked and looked back at the hatch, where the head of Tsukki lingered.   
“Anything else?” he asked, noticing the deadpan look with a slight edge of worry in there.   
He forced a smile.   
“Nothing,” Tsukki said, and he disappeared.  
“Right.”   
Yamaguchi swallowed and gritted his teeth. Then he got to work.

 

* * *

 

 

_Tuesday 21:32  
_ From __**Yachi H.  
** “So, uh. Just a message to let you know that I hope you had a good day. I'd like to talk if you want.”

 

 

“I will always love you, no matter what happens, no matter where you are.”  
Yachi Hitoka sighed heavily, hugging her knees.  
The man on TV stood in the rain, wet hair plastered to his forehead, his doctor's coat soaked. There was a gasp, and the camera panned to a pretty girl with her head wrapped in a scarf.   
Raindrops fell on her umbrella with a soft pattering sound.  
“Takeo-kun...”   
A single tear slid down the lady's perfectly smooth cheek as somewhere a piano started playing.   
“The treatment. It may not work, you know that better than anyone. I may...”  
“I know,” the guy yelled, and he flung out his arm. “I know, ok! And I don't care. I cancelled my engagement. I can't marry her, not any more. I found out what I want and it is you. Only you. I'm going to do everything I can to save you. I will be there for you till the very end.”  
Violins struck up and something very much like a sniffle came from the laptop sitting next to her. She glanced sideways to see Suga on his couch, watching the same series finale.  
“Suga-san, are you crying?”  
“No,” came his slightly hoarse voice. “Of course not. I'm just a little tired. That's all.” Suga wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his pyjama's. “By the way, should you be watching this?”  
Yachi shrugged and pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders.   
On TV, the couple kissed to a soundtrack of heavy string music as the camera panned out and the credits started rolling.

 

* * *

 

 

_Wednesday 20:14_  
From __**Yachi H**.  
“I'm so sorry. I won't bother you any more.”

 

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi shut off his phone and lay back in his bed with a sigh.   
There was stumbling above him, in the attic. Voices raised and running around and… giggling?   
He rolled his eyes.  
A thump from something hitting the floor, and more giggling.  
With a groan, he turned to his side and shoved his head between the pillows.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello,   
> apologies for the late update. I've been struggling quite a bit with this chapter.   
> Please let me know what you think!


	18. Three men come to Kyoto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Oikawa and Kuroo come to visit.

“How can I help you?” Tsukishima Kei greeted the two customers that had just come in.   
They were tall, both with black hair. One of them had a buzz cut and thick lips, the other sported a hairdo that looked like it was made by a blender. They looked vaguely touristy.   
“Two americano’s, and we’ll have one of those almond cookies, and a choc chip one,” blender man said. He spoke with a very light accent. Kinda hard to place.   
Tsukishima nodded and got to preparing their coffee, keeping an eye on them.   
The shop didn’t get a lot of tourists, usually. They didn’t exactly come to Kyoto to hang out in an American diner, anyway.  
He listened intently, picking up slivers of an English conversation as he brought their order out.  
They were talking about shrines. Definitely tourists, then.   
He watched them sit down and chat for a bit, before he leaned both elbows on the counter and went back to observing the happenings just in front of his place of employment.

A small crowd had gathered on the pavement outside.   
They were girls, mostly. Excited ones.   
They’d been milling around all morning. Occasionally one of them would step inside to order a drink, but mostly they just got in the way of actual customers.   
And now, finally, it seemed like the object of their interest had deigned to show up.   
The arrival involved screams and flailing and jumping up and down a lot.  
Tsukishima made a face at the high pitched squealing that hurt his ears, even behind double glazing. Eventually, he saw the girls part to make room for a young man.   
He was pushing through the crowd, phone in his hand like it was a sceptre. He had light brown hair and the kind of smile that Tsukishima hated.   
Plastic and painted on.   
The guy seemed to be filming the crowd, and he talked animatedly as he went through.  
He stopped only to pose for selfies and shake hands.  
What an incredible nuisance.   
The whole charade went on for at least twenty minutes before he bowed like an artist finishing a concert.   
The girls, and some boys, now that Tsukishima checked, pouted and slowly dispersed.   
Making apologetic gestures, the guy bowed again and then he finally entered the diner.

He walked in, noticed blender haired man, and waved enthusiastically, shouting something in a language that sounded altogether weird to Tsukishima.   
『Kai’s here. Please don’t do that,』 the other guy answered in English.   
『Right, right. Hi Kai!』   
The man named Kai nodded politely, and mister popular turned to the counter.  
“Can I help you?” Tsukishima asked.   
『Kuroo, I need assistance,』 nuisance man whined in heavily accented English. 『I don’t speak Japanese.』  
『I’m fine with English, sir,』 Tsukishima said, pushing up his glasses. God he hated these foreigners assuming he wouldn’t know anything.   
『Oh.』  
『What’ll it be?』  
『Vanilla bean latte. Two shots of espresso,』 the guy said and then he, honest to god, made finger guns at Tsukishima. The barista blinked and turned around, preparing his drink.   
『That’ll be 600 yen,』 he muttered, praying for this encounter to just be over.

When he turned back to the counter, the guy stood there unmoving, still radiating nuisance. He was grinning widely, staring at Tsukishima like he was expecting something.   
『600 yen, please,』 Tsukishima repeated in his most bored drone.  
『Aren’t you going to ask?』 the guy said, fishing out some coins. 『About the crowd? The adoring fans? Nothing?』  
Tsukishima just blinked at him.   
『Come on, Oikawa, leave the guy alone,』 the man called Kuroo sniggered from his table.  
Something in Tsukishima's mind fell into place and he could almost feel himself snap.   
His head shot up, face suddenly hot.   
『You’re Oikawa?』 he asked, voice a barely restrained snarl.  
Oikawa’s smile went somehow wider.  
『Yachi-san’s Oikawa?』 It came out almost as a hiss.  
『It’s true,』 the guy said, 『That’s me. Fan, are you?』  
Without another word, Tsukishima reached over the counter and grabbed Oikawa’s collar in an iron grip. 『I hope that you're some kind of immortal because I’m going to _kill_ you.』  
『Wow, wow. What-』  
『You cursed me, you flappy little man.』

In his booth, Kuroo had stood up, while his companion buried his face in a menu.  
『I’m sure I don’t know anything about any cur…. Ohhh.』 Oikawa said as realization dawned on that stupid chiselled face of his.  
『I couldn’t talk to my best friend about his weird as hell girl for _weeks_. 』  
『Tsukishima-san, right?』 Kuroo said, coming over with his hands up in the universal ‘don’t kill my stupid friend’ gesture. 『Let’s not get too hasty with the violence, here.』  
『I mean, Suga did ask you nicely not to say,』 Oikawa added, not helping at all.   
『What makes you think I give a damn about you weirdos?』  
『Noted, noted,』 Kuroo said, gently prying Tsukishima’s hands away. 『Now that you figured out who we are, I’m sure a smart cookie like you also knows why we’re here. 』  
Kuroo liberated his idiot friend and turned to Tsukishima, shooting him a lopsided grin. 『We’d like to talk to Yamaguchi-kun, if you don’t mind.』  
Tsukishima blinked. 『No.』 __  
『 Hey’ it’s not like we’re going to string him up or anything,』 Oikawa said, again not helping in defusing the situation at all. 『We just wanna talk.』  
『We’re not even cursing him,』 Kuroo added. 『Pinky swear.』  
Tsukishima sighed deeply. Trying to process this much idiocy and lack of basic human decency was making his head hurt. They made Kageyama look manageable for g- frig’s sake.  
A startled noise made him turn.

“Oh my god.”   
Yamaguchi was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking mortified.   
“Hi! Oh, are you Yamaguchi?” Kuroo said happily, switching to perfect Japanese while his friend looked on in apparent confusion.   
『That him?』 Oikawa asked, and Kuroo nodded.   
The both of them instantly converged on Yamaguchi like magpies that had just found a shiny bead.   
“Hi,” Kuroo said. “We’re Kuroo and Oikawa and we’re, uh, let’s say we’re Yachi’s brothers? Sorta. Family.”  
“I know who you are,” Yamaguchi said, face a picture of a frown. It was hard to tell with Yamaguchi, but he was definitely upset. Possibly annoyed, Tsukishima knew that much. Maybe even angry.  
“What are you doing here?” Yamaguchi asked.  
『Tell him we’re here to check if he’s good enough,』 Oikawa said, prodding his friend. 『And then if he is, we’ll try to persuade him to accept her feelings or something.』  
『I can speak English,』 Yamaguchi huffed.  
『Oh. Well what did we need to bring Kuroo for then.』  
『I got us the tickets?』 Kuroo snarled.  
『Right.』  
『Also I’m the mediator, since you’re part of the reason he’s upset.』  
『I am _not_ -』 Oikawa started.  
『Please leave.』 Yamaguchi’s voice sounded remarkably forceful, for him. His face was red, his mouth a thin line. The two weirdos blinked at him.   
『This is my place of employment. You’re causing a disturbance. Please leave,』 he repeated. 『If you want to talk to me, we can meet later. Just… not here. Please. Go.』  
The two men gaped at him and Tsukishima felt a tinge of pride, seeing how he actually got them to shut up for two seconds.  
『Does he know I can curse him?』 Oikawa said in a stage-whisper.   
『I think he does,』 Kuroo answered. 『But he probably assumes Ya-chan will be angry if you do.』

Behind them, the short haired man called Kai got up. He’d been sitting quietly, calmly draining his coffee, but now he gently took Kuroo’s arm.   
『Let's head to that shrine, shall we?』 he said brightly, smiling in a way that reminded Tsukishima of a Buddha statue.   
『Right, we were gonna do that, didn’t we?』 Kuroo answered with a shrug.   
『Oi, what about him?』 Oikawa said, pointing at the furious cook.   
『Like he said, we’ll meet up later.』  
『We need his number,』 Oikawa pointed out.  
『Yachi has it,』 Kuroo said, slinging his bag over his shoulder, ready to go.   
『We’re going to tell Yachi??!』  
『Shouldn’t we? It’s kinda her life we’re butting into.』  
『And ours,』 Tsukishima sneered.   
『Point,』 Kuroo said, grinning widely as he walked toward the door.

『So you’re gonna just leave me here? What am I supposed to do until then?』 Oikawa whined.  
『Sorry bro. I promised my darling here that at least 75 percent of this trip would be Kai time. Go make some vlogs or something. Tell me where to meet up later?』  
Oikawa made a disgusted face and slumped over the counter, grabbing his latte before sipping it dramatically. 『You guys are no fun.』  
He glanced at the kitchen doorway, where Yamaguchi was still standing, arms folded.   
『Right, I was unwanted here. After I got you all that publicity, too.』  
『Customers haven’t been able to get inside all morning,』 Tsukishima frowned.  
『Oh fine, I’ll just go be touristy then,』 Oikawa shrugged, and he waltzed back out, throwing a wave behind him.

The door shut and silence descended on the shop like a block of concrete.   
Tsukishima turned to his friend. “Are you actually going to meet with them?” he asked.  
Yamaguchi nodded. His face looked grim, but his eyes were full of determination.   
Tsukishima sighed. “You broke up with their sister or… whatever. They might do something horrible to you, just saying.”  
“I know.”  
“I mean, I can’t stop you but-“  
“Don’t you want to know?” Yamaguchi asked. “Ancient gods are possibly roaming the earth and masquerading as PHD students and … whatever that Oikawa man is. The implications are huge! We could meet the god of creation and he might be working in ramen shop for all I know. And if they’re real, what about like… sphinxes and phoenixes and dragons… This is…”  
Tsukishima chuckled. “When did you get so cool? I’d rather not think about all that.”  
“Liar,” Yamaguchi laughed, and the tension drained from his shoulders. He hopped on a bar stool and leaned his elbows on the counter, a sign for Tsukishima to start making him a hazelnut cappuccino.

“My mind has been completely stuffed lately,” Yamaguchi went on. “There’s so much I’ve been thinking about and they could give me some answers, at least.”  
Tsukishima hummed and started the machine, a loud, piercing whirr of coffee beans grinding, followed by the hiss of steam and the drip of milk. “I’m just saying that Yachi-san might be a… safer conversation partner. That Oikawa dude is the worst.”  
The image of the flock of birds attacking still haunted him and Tsukishima shuddered slightly, shaking his head to make the images go away before plopping Yamaguchi’s drink in front of his face.  
“I'm aware of that,” Yamaguchi nodded. “But they’re all I have. I can’t really… face Yachi-san right now. Besides, that Kai person seems nice.”  
“Fair enough,” Tsukishima said, prepping himself an espresso. “Do you want me to come?”  
“Not unless you want to. I’ll be fine. Do you want to come?”  
“I’d rather not.”  
Yamaguchi nodded and took a sip from his coffee. He seemed to ponder for a while, then he grinned widely. “If I don’t come back, Tsukki, you'll have to avenge me.”  
Tsukishima folded his arms.  
“Of course.”

 

* * *

 

A sharp rap at her door made Yachi Hitoka look up.  
«Surprise!»  
She blinked. «Oikawa... san?»  
Oikawa Tooru, Russian celebrity and the incarnation of the god Apollo, stood in the doorway to her office and gave her a mild smile.   
«What are you doing here?» Yachi muttered.  
«Me and Kuroo are in town to see you. Nurse's orders. You have everyone worried, you know.»  
«But you're, you didn't, I, um....» Yachi stilled, trying to process that apparently both Oikawa and Kuroo were here, in Kyoto, and that they hadn't bothered to notify her in advance.   
That would have been nice. Knowing this. Ahead of time.   
For one, her apartment was a mess of chocolate wrappers and tissues. For two, her colleague would probably burst into the office any minute now, and Yachi wasn't sure how she's react to a minor internet celebrity just hanging out and chatting in ancient Greek.  
«What are you doing at my work?» Yachi tried, carefully.  
Oikawa rolled his eyes. «What's with you Japanese people and obsessing over work? I have come here for two things. One, to take you out for a drink and a walk around town.»  
«I... I'm sorry but I can't,» Yachi said. «I have to teach a class in... ten minutes. I'm really happy to see you, but this isn't something I can just drop.»  
Oikawa pouted and let out a long breath. «Alright, I figured as much,» he said, and reached out to grab Yachi's phone from her desk. «In that case, just give me Yamaguchi's number.»

«Wh- what? What are you doing?» Yachi shot up to take it back, but he held it high, out of her reach.   
«It's very important that I talk to him, I'm afraid. Let's see,» he said, scrolling through her contacts. «Is he under 'cutie' or did you just go the boring route and save him under 'yamaguchi'.»  
«Please stop that!» Yachi begged, «How... how are you even getting in? That phone is fingerprint locked!»  
«I'm amazing,» Oikawa simply stated, still keeping the phone out of her reach as he squinted at it. «Ah, here. Yamaguchi T.»  
«Oikawa-san please! I really don't want you to bother him. I know you're probably trying to help but he obviously wants nothing to do with me. It's best if we just leave him alone.»  
«Well he said he would talk to me,» Oikawa shrugged. «By the way, real cutie. You at least have taste on that front.»  
Yachi froze, shocked. «You... met him?»  
«Me and Kuroo went to his diner thing. Also saw his friend. With the glasses? Boy, is that guy a grump.»  
«Oh my gods, you met Tsukishima-san? Is he... is he ok?» Yachi squeaked. The thought of Oikawa just waltzing in on anyone, especially Tsukishima-san, was causing her heart to try and bury itself in the ground.   
«Bit of a douche, that one,» Oikawa said, giving her back her phone. «But I didn't hurt him, if that's what you mean. Even if he did try to attack me.»

Yachi stared at him. He was concentrating on his phone as he copied the number, tip of his tongue peeking through his lips. She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't think of anything.   
This had officially gone over her head.  
Oikawa looked up and reached out with his index finger, gently closing her jaw. «Is it ok if we drop by your place tonight? I'll need to look at that bite of yours.»  
She nodded wearily. «Ok... I guess.»  
«Wonderful. I'll see you tonight! We'll bring sushi!»  
And with a wave and a flourish, he made for the door.  
«Um! Oikawa-san?» Yachi croaked.  
«Hmmm?»  
«Please don't curse him. Yamaguchi-kun I mean. Please?»  
Oikawa sighed. «What do you take me for, darling? You curse _one_ person, on the express request of Suga, I might add, and suddenly you're this trigger-happy witch. It'll be fine. Trust me.»  
He walked out and Yachi was left standing alone in her office, dread spreading through her veins.   
She realized, perhaps for the first time, that she really didn't trust Oikawa.  
  


 

* * *

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi turned into a quiet lane and nervously fidgeted with his shirt.   
He had decided to meet them in a park. One of the smaller ones.   
It had a playground and a little stall that sold drinks and ice cream.   
So on the one hand: it was in the open, in public, in broad daylight, which should make Yamaguchi feel safer.   
But on the other hand: birds. Birds were... a possibility. He'd just have to deal with that if it got to it.  
He emerged from the shaded lane to see three men on a bench, chattering away and feeding the ducks.   
Oh good, Kai and Kuroo were there too. That was good, right?   
Right.

He approached them and coughed awkwardly.  
『Um. Hi.』  
『Yamaguchi-kun! Good of you to make it. Pretty place, isn't it?』 the man called Kuroo said with a wide grin. His companion gave him an amicable nod.   
On the far side, the man called Oikawa, the one who had cursed Tsukki and possibly done all kinds of horrible things, folded his arms and sized him up.  
『Done being angry, are you?』 he asked, and Yamaguchi swallowed.  
『Not... really,』 he said. It probably did no good to lie to gods. Yachi had said this guy was Apollo. He could probably see the truth and all that stuff.   
Instead, he straightened his back and looked Oikawa in the eyes: 『I came here for answers.』  
『Alright,』 Kuroo said.『Ask away.』  
Kai stood up. 『This is my cue to go take a stroll around the park. Do you want me to bring you back a drink?』  
『Um... sure?』 Yamaguchi said, mildly worried by the fact that the only one he trusted just up and left.

『 Let's hear it. 』  Oikawa said while Kai walked off, humming softly to himself.  
『 Ok. Alright, 』  Yamaguchi said, taking a deep breath.  『 First question. How old are you? 』   
『 Thirty-one, 』  Kuroo answered quickly.  『 And this guy here is 26, though I think we can all agree that he has the maturity of a pre-pubescent child. 』   
『 Oh do shut up, 』  Oikawa huffed.  
Yamaguchi squinted at them. 『 Like.... really 31? Or... 』   
『 Really 31, 』  Kuroo grinned, and he patted the bench next to him.  『 Why don't you take a seat, so we don't have to talk so loudly. 』   
Carefully, Yamaguchi sat down on the edge of the bench.   
『 As you may be aware, I am Hermes, Greek god of travel and business, messenger to the gods and all-round good sport. But I'm also, in a very real way, Tetsurou Kuroo, chemistry teacher, born 31 years ago in Wakefield Hospital in Wellington, New Zealand, to- 』   
『 I think he gets it, Tetsu, 』  Oikawa mumbled, and he turned to Yamaguchi.  『 It's like reincarnation, really. We're not the same person as 2000-whatever years ago. We're regular people, just with an extra... identity. 』   
『 Like superheroes! 』 Kuroo squawked.   
『 So... is it just the greeks? Who gets modern incarnations? 』   
『 Well, I found people from most old timey pantheons, 』  Kuroo said.  『 There's a bunch of Egyptian and like Celtic and stuff gods. And before you ask, no, I have not found Jahweh or anyone like that. Just from pantheons. 』

『 Oh. Ok. Alright, 』  Yamaguchi went on.  『 So what do you, uh, do? Apart from... cursing people. 』   
『 That's just him, 』  Kuroo pointed to his friend, who made a face.  『 I do tickets, mostly. I got us here. And messaging. I have a knack for getting the right people on the line. 』   
『 And I do many things that don't involve cursing, thankyouverymuch. I'm persuasive. And famous. 』   
『 Is that the god thing or just the attention seeker in you? 』  Kuroo said off-handedly.   
『 That is hard work and dedication, mostly, 』  Oikawa nodded.   
『 Y- Yachi-san said she fights shadows, 』  Yamaguchi said, looking at his hands.  『 She showed me how she got hurt. 』    
『 That's sun god territory. Take it away, Oikawa. 』   
『 Well, 』  Oikawa started.  『 We haven't  _really_ figured this one out but sun gods basically fight back the night. Traditionally, we are to beat the shadows of darkness so that the sun may rise. Now you're gonna say the sun rises anyway because the earth is a rock hurtling through space around a giant fireball and, yes. But also... no. If you want, you can consider it symbolic for the fight between good and evil or something. Bad things happen if we don't. 』   
『 But bad things happen if you do! She's obviously hurt. She was sick for days! 』   
『 Well, they're real, 』  Oikawa said, face suddenly serious.  『 The shadows. We don't know what exactly they are, but they're real and they're nasty. We do what we can, but no one ever said this was a walk in the park. Your cute little girlfriend is much more of a badass than you probably thought. 』

Yamaguchi fell silent for a moment. There was a pang in his gut that was really hard to swallow right now.  
『 Tsukki says they attacked him, too. Or tried to, 』  he whispered.  
Oikawa nodded.  『 Yeah, according to Suga he kinda walked in on a battle, there. 』   
『 What happens if Yachi sleeps through her alarm, if... 』   
『 If you're there next to her? 』  Kuroo smirked, and Yamaguchi froze, blush rising in his cheeks.  
『 Home is a safe place, 』  Oikawa said, conspiratorially.  『 So don't worry about that. Fighting the shadows of night is a wilful act. It's like starting a boss battle in a video game. You have to make the decision to fight. 』   
『 I see, 』  Yamaguchi said. His head was filled with static again.  

『 So you see, it's not that she was trying to lie to you, 』  Kuroo said in a low voice.  『 She was trying to, uh, ease you into it. We can't just go on a first date and start discussing stuff like this. It's not really her fault. If you want my opinion, which you probably don't... I think she really rather likes you. 』   
『 So! 』  Oikawa interrupted.  『 Is there anything else you need to know?  Do you need some proper info on the kind of stuff that Yachi is too innocent for? 』   
『 What… stuff, exactly? 』   
『 You know, god babies, 』    
Kuroo slapped his hand over his face.  『 For fuck's sake, Tooru. 』   
『 I, uh... I'm good on that front? 』  Yamaguchi said, inching away.   
『 The guy is twentysomething, you think they don't have biology class here? 』  Kuroo started.  
『 Well he doesn't look that experienced to me, 』  Oikawa pouted.   
『 How much experience do you have with girls, anyway? 』   
『 More than you, mister gay marriage. 』   
『 At least I'm capable of living with another human being for more than a night. 』   
『 Um... 』  Yamaguchi tried, but it was to no avail. The two men next to him quickly devolved into the most petty fight he'd ever heard.

There was a soft tap on his shoulder.   
Kai held out a can of soda.  『 Here you go, Yamaguchi-kun. 』   
『 Oh. Thanks, 』  Yamaguchi said, mildly flustered.  『 What do I owe you? 』   
『 It's on me, 』  Kai said.  『 Though actually, can you show me something? There’s supposed to be a shrine around here and Tetsu and I couldn’t find it. 』   
『 Oh, the little one? Yeah it’s right... ok I’ll take you, 』  Yamaguchi said, happy for any excuse to leave the squabbling seagulls behind.  
They stepped away from the bench and crossed the grass, silently sipping from their soda.   
This was nice, Yamaguchi thought. The gently smiling Kai radiated peace and tranquillity. And boy did he need that right now.   
『 There’s a little road, 』  he said, pointing out a path between two houses at the edge of the park,  『 but it really is hard to see. 』   


They walked on in silence, one behind the other as the path curved up between two high hedges. Once it cleared the houses, it became wider again.   
Yamaguchi took a deep breath and sped up, walking next to Kai.   
『Kai-san. You’re… normal, right?』 he asked. 『I mean...』   
Kai smiled. 『Depends on your definition, I suppose. But I’m very much human, if that’s what you mean.』  
『I hope you don't mind me asking this but... how do you… deal? How did you process all this?』 He made a vague flailing motion and Kai chuckled.  
『Yamaguchi-kun, I think about quantum realities for a living, so when Tetsu told me, it wasn’t as… shocking to me as it could have been. Empirical research requires me to accept reality as I see it, and Tetsu can do some things that are not logically possible in our society.』  
『Well, that’s very… calm of you.』 Yamaguchi pouted, and Kai smiled at him.   
『Can I ask you a question?』 he said.  
『Mm?』  
『Do you like her? Miss Yachi?』  
Yamaguchi sighed deeply.   
He nodded. Of course he did. He wouldn’t be in this much pain if he didn’t, he could have just dropped her as a crazy person and moved on with his life.  
『I know it can be a bit overwhelming, dealing with glowing people and trickster gods and… whatever mister Oikawa is, but for you the decision isn’t that complex,』 Kai said. 『The way I see it, all you have to do is figure out if you like her, and if you like her enough to accept her quirks and tribulations.』  
Yamaguchi blinked.   
『A large part of love, I’ve always thought, is simply being there for each other. Taking the bad with the good, and all that. Are the highs worth the lows? Are the good times worth the... weirder times. Once you figure that out, it should be fairly easy to come to a decision.』  
『I’m gonna have to think about that,』 Yamaguchi muttered.   
Kai smiled at him. 『That’s probably a good idea.』

 

 

 


	19. Sushi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things get dark.

 

«And then Kai and him walked off and that's the last I heard about that,» Oikawa Tooru said, and he picked out a piece of sushi that Ya-chan had told him had eel on top.  
He liked eel, he decided.  
He looked up into the faces of the sun siblings giving him what could only be described as a Look.  
Suga, on the laptop screen, was sat on his couch as always, and blinked wearily.  
Yachi looked more impressed, at least, though she also looked like she was about to cry, which wasn't really the intention.  
«I see you've been diplomatic and subtle as always, Oikawa,» Suga said, raising an eyebrow.  
«You know, that's an awful lot of judging, coming from a guy wearing turtle jammies,» Oikawa pouted.  
Suga ignored him and took a sip from his drink. «So how did that end? What did Kai-san and Yamaguchi talk about? Is he going to keep dating Yachi?»  
«No clue,» Oikawa said.  
«What do you mean?»  
«Well you know how talkative Kai is,» he sighed.  
«I... don't, actually,» Suga answered. «Never met him.»  
«The man is an enigma.» Oikawa threw up his hands. «You ask him questions and he just _smiles_ at you. I don't know how Tetsu puts up with him.»  
«Yes, imagine living with someone that doesn't jabber 24/7, the inhumanity,» Suga smirked. There was a definite glint of amusement in his eye.  
«Well it sounds boring to me,» Oikawa said, and he flopped over on the couch.

He'd expected Suga to be upset, to be honest. Waltzing in and forcing a situation, no matter how necessary, was not the nurse's style. But to his wonder, Suga was, if anything, into it. He certainly wasn't angry, which was a relief, at least.  
Ya-chan was... another matter.  
She sat with her arms folded, her entire face pursed like she'd just bitten into a lemon.  
«You know, you'll get wrinkles if you keep your face creased like that,» he said gently, causing her to frown deeper.  
«You really didn't need to do that,» she finally said.  
«True,» Oikawa admitted, «but I also couldn't really help myself. You know part of my domain is love, don't you?»  
«That's Aphrodite, you dolt,» Suga rolled his eyes. «You wouldn't know the first thing about romance.»  
«Excuse me! Apollo is _so_ a love god.»  
«You're just trying to be an _everything_ god.»  
«Maybe,» Oikawa sighed. «But I couldn't really sit back and let you ruin this for yourself, Ya-chan. You were too nervous, too quick to believe you can't have it or don't deserve it. And from what we've heard of this boy, he's just as bad as you are. Though I'll give him credit for being willing to meet us, at least.»  
«Yamaguchi-kun is brave. That does not mean he's willing to put up with me,» Yachi muttered.  
«Well, at the very least, your boy will now see how stable and responsible you are as a person.»  
Suga let out a short bark of a laugh. «As opposed to the rest of us? That's... a strategy, true.»

 

«You really didn't have to do that,» Yachi Hitoka said again.  
She was mortified. Embarrassed. Scared. Mildly impressed, also, with Yamaguchi for standing up to and agreeing to talk to people he probably saw as super scary.  
Also a little with Oikawa for managing to at least _get_ him to talk. That's more than she, with her text messages, had been able to do for the last few days.  
So maybe it did make her feel a little bit better. That didn't exactly make it _right._

«But let's not forget that I'm not here solely to fix your love life, darling,» Oikawa suddenly said, sitting back up. _  
_ Of course, the fact that she had been feeling better could also be his mere presence, she thought, not his unpredictable behaviour. Like Suga, just sitting next to him was like lying on a beach in the sun. Oikawa radiated warmth. If someone could just take his essence and put it in a pillow or a blanket, Yachi would carry it with her everywhere and be happy for all time.  
«Let's have a look at you, then,» he said, slightly muffled, after shoving the final piece of sushi in his mouth. «Show me the arm.»  
«Do me a favour and check her forehead, too?» Suga's voice suggested from somewhere behind him. «Just take her temperature.»  
«Yes, yes, mister nurse.»  
Oikawa gingerly reached out and pushed the flat of his hand against her forehead. Heat came pouring in almost immediately and Yachi had to stop a contented sigh.  
«She's cold as a stone,» he commented.  
«Yes, I was afraid of that. How are you feeling, Yachi?»  
«I'm fine,» she pouted.  
Oikawa rolled his eyes. «Ok, now that we've established that you don't want to be a bother and all that: how are you _really_ feeling? Physically, I mean, not the bit where you got your heart trampled.»  
«You just go straight for it, don't you?» the voice of Suga sighed.  
«I'm being _practical_ Su-chan.»  
«I'm...» Yachi held a breath. She'd been so busy crying over Yamaguchi that she hadn't stopped to consider her body in a while now. She closed her eyes and the weight of the world seemed to close in. «I'm not fine. I guess.»

«There, see? _Results_ ,» Oikawa spat at the laptop, as Suga made a worried face.  
«Are you in pain?» Suga asked.  
«No, nothing like that. Ok, maybe a little, but it's just my arm. It's sore. Still. Like a burn or something,» she said.  
«Well, let's have a look.» Oikawa rifled through his bag and pulled out a pair of glasses.  
«It's gotten a little bigger,» Yachi said apologetically, taking off her jacket before slowly unwinding the bandages.

«Yachi, that's....»   
The revelation seemed to take Suga by surprise. The bite marks now ran almost up to her shoulder, and they took on a rather nasty looking reddish brown colour.  
«Why didn't you tell us?!» Suga demanded.  
«There's nothing we could do,» Yachi said. «Oikawa-san and Kuroo-san already came as fast as they could, I didn't want to worry you any more than necessary.»  
Oikawa peered at her arm, tracing some of the marks with his finger. It felt like her skin was being slowly roasted and Yachi hissed, pulling at her hand.  
«Does that hurt?» he said softly, and she nodded.  
He let go and laid his palm on her forehead again. «This doesn't?»  
She leaned into his hand. «No. That's nice. Warm.»  
«So have you been cold a lot?» Suga asked.  
«Yeah, cold and sleepy. It's like the flu, but without the sniffling and the nausea.»  
Suga made a little worried noise.

«I'm gonna call it now,» he said, «I don't want you fighting any more.»  
«Suga-san, I can do that just fine! I haven't made mistakes, I promise! It feels like I'm getting better, even.»  
«He's right, though,» Oikawa hummed. «You're wasting energy that should go into healing.»  
«But-»  
«No buts,» Oikawa said firmly. «I'm going to give you the best advice I've ever received: rest. Heal. Take your time to recuperate.»  
«This coming from mister Workaholic? When have you ever taken a break, Oikawa?» Suga huffed.  
«I don't, but that doesn't mean it's not good advice.You actually look and feel sick, Ya-chan, you should stop forcing yourself. Maybe even take some time off work.»  
«But I'll be useless! I can't just sit still and think about...» she trailed off.  
«Yachi, how many hours have you worked the past week?» Suga asked gently.  
«I dunno...»  
«You do.» He sounded stern.  
«About... thirteen hours? Daily... on... on average. It's a good way to keep myself busy because otherwise I'll just sit here and be sad and-»  
Oikawa stood up with a speed that made her yelp and strode across the small room.  
«O-oikawa-san?»

He came back with a blanket and started wrapping it around her shoulder.  
«Up. Into bed with you.»  
«But it's only eight?»  
«No buts!»  
He pushed her to her bedroom and almost wrestled her into bed.  
«Oikawa-san, I swear, it-»  
«Miss Yachi Hitoka, do not make me curse you to sleep for a hundred years or something.»  
«I don't think that's something Apollo can-»  
«Do not test me, little dawn goddess,» he growled, and Yachi swallowed, trembling.  
Then Oikawa leaned in and softly kissed her forehead.  
«Sweet dreams, darling. I'll clean up in the living room and come by tomorrow to check on you, ok?»  
Dumbstruck, Yachi nodded slightly and watched him leave, glancing back quickly before he closed the door.

 

Oikawa Tooru flopped onto the couch and ran a hand through his hair.   
«This is much, much worse than we thought, isn't it?» he said lowly to the laptop next to him.  
On the screen, Suga nodded mournfully.  
«I heard that noise you made, with the flu. What was that, nurse man? That was you thinking bad things, wasn't it?»  
«Mm, what she was describing, the sniffles, the fever, the stomach aches. Those are symptoms of a body fighting back. It just reminded me of the fact that this probably isn't something she has antibodies for, because, well...»  
«Magic.»  
«If that's what you want to call it.»  
Oikawa cracked his neck. «So what do we do? Because I'm out of my depth. I have no idea how to fix this. Touching her hurts her skin and-»  
His phone bleeped at the same time that Sugawara's laptop made a small dinging sound.  
Frowning, he opened up his mail.

 

* * *

 

**_From_ : Yaku Morisuke (** MorisukeJasmin@baidu.ch **)**   
**_To:_ Kuroo Tetsurou (** mailman@gmail.com **); Bokuto Koutarou (** bokutou.koutaro@bl.uk **), Akaashi Keiji (** x78ijeliy18665@protonmail.com **)**   
**_CC_ : Sugawara Koushi (** SugawaraK@yahoo.jp **)**

 

『Hello all,

Thanks for sending me the writings of the late Velasquez. While I'm sad that I never got to meet the man, it does make me feel better to know that I am not, so to speak, the only Egyptian out there. The fact that he even lived in this time slot makes me think that there are maybe others, which is a bit of a relief, if I'm honest.

Since you asked nicely, I had a look at the scanned documents you sent over.   
Oddly enough, they actually are readable for me, even though they seem, as mister Akaashi said, to be written in hieroglyphics.  
To get straight to it: most of these journals detail a bunch of experiments.  
From what I can understand, mister Velasquez kept small creatures and subjected them to different lighting levels in an effort to learn more about them.  
In his notes, he calls these things 'dark ones', which I suppose could translate to the 'shadows' you talked about in your previous e-mail.  
There's a lot of documentation to go through, but since you seem to be in a hurry, I thought I'd send you this passage. I think it's about what you guys are worrying over.  
This is from some kind of diary, or at least the book with all his theories in it. 』

 

_『_ _My studies, such as I have conducted them over the last thirty years, have always focused on the dark ones as a force of nature. A mindless creature, like a jellyfish or, perhaps more likely, an ant. A swarm with a single minded goal, but little to no individual brainpower._

_That was always how they behaved, and I never saw the need to adjust this theory until recently. In my experiments with my latest capture, Sample 64, I am however forced to acknowledge that not all dark ones are created equal. While most of them are, indeed, feeble minded creatures of instinct, this is not the case for all of them._

_There are, among the dark ones, a top class. They are larger than normal, stronger, also, but more than that, they move with purpose. They show signs of critical thinking. When Sample 64 broke from its jar, I had to spend three hours setting up elaborate traps to capture it again. It found the tiniest fractures of darkness in a room that is as brightly lit and glittering as the surface of the sun. And when I finally caught it, it shrieked at me, it flailed, it moaned. I could, perhaps in my weakness, almost hear it plead._

_And so I was forced to revisit some of the work I've done over the years. In my earlier lighting experiments on the dark ones, for instance, I was certain that I could see faces, human figures hiding in the blackness of these creatures. I have, of course, always dismissed this as illogical. It is natural for human beings to see faces in everything, and I found no empirical evidence other than my already subjective mind. With the technology I have at hand, it is impossible to expose film long enough to develop a clear or recognizable image._

_But still, perhaps overpowered by my own curiosity, I tried again with Sample 64. I set up the lights, opened the jar, calculated the exposure, and what I found is that, in the brief flash of brightest light, Sample 64 was a human figure. A small girl. And much as I would like to forget, I recognized that girl as one of my earlier patients. She was one of the more tragic victims of the sleeping sickness that afflicted a small village in Finland. I tried, I really did, but I could not save her then._

_The experiment showed me two important things._   
_One: Sample 64 contains, in some sense, the essence of a young woman who died decades ago._   
_Two: the light **hurt her**. My earlier experiments with dark ones usually resulted in noise and, sometimes, the breaking down of the sample, so this should have been apparent to me, but I fear that here, for the first time, I saw the destruction I have reaped._   
_It was very clear in the brief flash I saw that she was in pain._   
_I made her cry._   
_If these musings are ever read by someone with a scientific mind, they will no doubt dismiss this theory as an old man being haunted by the ghosts of his failures. And they may very well be correct. But I know what I saw._   
_I shut down the experiment. I let her go._

_After mulling it over for weeks, and reading and rereading my research, I have adjusted my theory as follows._   
_The dark ones are the dead._   
_I don't know how, and I don't know why. Perhaps they are poor souls stuck in limbo, perhaps they are those that were unable to travel across the great divide, perhaps... part of this is my fault. And while most have succumbed to madness, others cling on, more powerful and more intelligent._   
_They feel pain, they probably feel anger, too._

_The implications of this are, I fear, great. They speak of wide ranging philosophies about the afterlife that I, even I, would prefer not to dive into._   
_But on a more practical scale, this also changes the true purport of the incidents in Finland. Those poor people being found with dark marks, dead or dying, after a long winter. I have always know that they were touched by the dark ones, but in my earlier writings, I described what happened as a toxic bite, a sleeping curse. I no longer believe that to be the case._   
_In essence, it was a killing curse. A slow bleeding, not of energy, but of life. A prolonged dragging down to the underworld. I have in my life seen many things that go beyond human comprehension, done many things that should not be possible for a mere mortal man. But I do, as a scientist, recognize this behaviour._   
_What the dark ones try to do, and I truly believe this, is what drives all creatures, great and small. It is in the very nature of everything to procreate. I feel like they simply want to make more of themselves, and this is why they lash out at anyone that they can reach. 』_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya, sorry about the fairly short chapter.  
> We're getting to the wrapping up point, which means next chapter will probably be Very Long.  
> In the meantime, let me know what you think. Feel free to hypothesize :D


	20. Photograph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things wrap up.

«I can't believe I'm doing this with you.» Kuroo grumbled as bowed to the retreating taxi.  
«What?» Oikawa huffed. He hauled up a backpack.  
«I woke up Super Early for this,» Kuroo whined. «I left Kai. Warm Kai. Sleepy Kai. In my hotel bed. On our holiday.»  
«Yes, yes, poor you,» Oikawa muttered.  
«For this.»  
Kuroo moped all the way up the stairs to the small temple.   
Oikawa rolled his eyes and took a right about halfway up, onto a small path that led into the wooded hill. «You know exactly why you're doing this, so stop complaining.»  
«Find out who the big nasty shadow is, and tell them to knock it off,» Kuroo parotted. «I just don't see why you need me for this. I'm not even a sun god.»  
«You want me to take Yachi?»   
«We coulda gotten Suga you know.»  
«Pfft, he's even whinier than you are,» Oikawa shrugged. «Look. All I need you to do is strengthen the circle and take the picture.»   
«If what that dude wrote is true, all we're going to do is piss this thing off, and then the pic won't even work.»  
Oikawa shook his head. «He's an old man who wrote that stuff ages ago. He probably hasn't even heard of SLR.»  
«I take it this is why I'm lugging around a massively heavy backpack,» Kuroo asked.  
«Yes. I have a bunch of equipment that really comes in handy at times like this.»  
«This is an awful lot of 'equipment' for a guy who makes a living taking selfies,» Kuroo grumbled.  
«I like camera's ok?»

«This should be the place,» Oikawa said, as they reached a clearing in the woods. He surveyed the spot and then put down a small, battery powered lamp in the middle. The ground was mostly dirt and rocks, with some scuff marks here and there. It certainly seemed big enough for a fight.   
«Ok, walk me though this,» Kuroo said. He plopped the backpack down and rubbed his shoulders.   
«First, we need a circle big enough for the both of us. You do that.»  
«Uh, sure?» Kuroo opened his jacket and pulled out something that looked suspiciously like a pocket umbrella.   
Before Oikawa's astonished eyes, Kuroo slid the bottom part out until it was about the size of a walking stick, a long wooden rod with two metallic painted snakes winding their way around it.   
«Watch this,» Kuroo said with a lopsided smile, and he pushed a little button at the top. With a soft 'click', two spokes sprang out of the wood and unfolded into little wings.  
«By the gods,» Oikawa muttered.  
Kuroo waggled his eyebrows. «So cool. Right?» he grinned.  
«You are so fucking extra.»  
Kuroo pouted. «I don't wanna hear that coming from you, mister 'influencer'.»  
«I can heard those air quotes!»  
With a snort, Kuroo set the staff down and started drawing a large circle in the dirt.

Oikawa rifled through the backpack.  
«So what's gonna happen is, sometime before sunrise these shadows are going to come out and attack us,» he said.  
«Great! Lovely.»  
«I will fight them off, no problem. You just stay inside the circle and take pictures of the big one.»  
«Right.»  
Oikawa pulled out a bunch of tripods and started setting them up with camera's.  
«Ok,» he said. «So this one I set to a fairly long exposure time, and autoshoot.»   
Kuroo looked up and nodded, finishing his circle.   
«So just point it at the thing and push the button and leave it alone.»  
«Sure.»

«This one,» Oikawa said, pulling out a small, weird looking tube. «is the lightfield camera. I can sharpen the image later, so just point and click. Even you can do that.»  
«Your faith in my abilities is truly humbling, Tooru.»  
«And this,» Oikawa went on, ignoring his friend.  
«That's your iPhone.» Kuroo said.  
«... is my iPhone, with a cool little nightvision lens I picked up somewhere.»  
«The amount of crap you lug around on a daily basis, is also humbling,» Kuroo noted.  
«I think I'll put this on video, but we're going to be making a bit of light when fighting so I don't know.»  
«You know I can push more than one button, right?» Kuroo said, rolling his eyes.  
«Fine, fine. Only use the phone camera when it's dark.»  
«Aye aye. Anything else?»  
Oikawa checked his watch. It should start soon.  
He went back to his backpack. «Just this,» he said, handing Kuroo a small pouch.  
«Sun glasses? Are you kidding me?»  
Kuroo looked up into Oikawa's blinding smile. On his face was a pair of retro Ray Bans, in his hands a photographer's flash the size of a shoebox.   
It seemed to glow slightly in the gloom of the forest.  
«Trust me on that one,» Oikawa grinned.

 

 

“Two orders of pancakes, a soft boiled egg, fruit salad and toast.”  
“Ok!” Yamaguchi Tadashi wiped his counter and started prepping.   
Outside, he could hear the soft pattering of rain, chasing away the summer heat. He cracked open the window a little to let in some air and breathed deeply.  
He liked the smell of rain. Always had.   
Then he frowned.   
His hand inadvertedly went to his back pocket, and his phone, where no new messages had shown up for days.  
It made sense, he thought. It’s not like he had texted her back at any point since that whole… thing. He couldn’t exactly expect her to keep trying. She was probably scared of coming across as stalkery or desperate or whatever.  
Maybe he should answer. Just to, you know, see how she was doing?   
The rain would make her sleepy, wouldn’t it?   
So she probably wouldn’t even see it.  
He shook his head and he became aware of something else than the drumming of rain.

“… and one egg over easy, on white rice.”  
Yamaguchi blinked. “What?”  
“Toast, one order of waffles, two orders of bacon and one egg over-easy, on white rice,” Tsukki repeated in a drone that sounded altogether accusatory. “You ok?”  
“Um. Right. Yes, of course.”  
“Because it looks like you’re burning pancakes again.”  
“Eek!” Yamaguchi sprinted to the grill to flip the pancakes, just in time.  
Tsukki raised an eyebrow at him.  
“I'm fine! Really. Order coming right up,” Yamaguchi said, smiling sheepishly.   
“If you say so.”

 

 

Yachi Hitoka rolled out of bed and trudged into her living room where she opened the curtains.  
Gray skies everywhere, and rain drawing patterns on the glass.  
Bleh.  
With a long-suffering sigh, she slumped into the bathroom to brush her teeth. Then she opened the cabinet to take out the jar of sun water, and dutifully dipped in a bandage.   
Not that it would matter.   
Yachi startled at the thought.   
No, nonono. She had to trust her brothers, surely. They were trying so hard. She didn't want to let them down. If she went down that path it would let everyone down and they'd be worried sick and it would all be her fault and-  
So what?  
Frowning at herself, Yachi put the jar back and walked out of the bathroom, shaking her head.   
In the kitchen, she found a thermos of coffee and some pre-wrapped sandwiches, with a note.

« Ya-chan, make sure to eat up! I have some places to go today but I'll be back later to visit. I took one of your keys! »

Underneath that, was a drawn figure of Oikawa, making a peace sign.   
Yachi smiled at it and poured out a cup, inhaling the fumes. She took a sip and opened a sandwich, nibbling on it.   
Who'd have thought Oikawa would be this much of a mother hen? She must have really worried him. She should do something nice for him, once she got better.   
Oh! Right. The bandages.   
Feeling rather silly, Yachi went back into the bathroom and wound the sun drenched bandage all the way up her arm, before securing it. She felt, at the very least, a little warmer now.   
Wrapping a blanket over her shoulders, hot drink by her hand, she sat down in front of her laptop to compose an email to her professor.

 

 

«That was fun,» Kuroo Tetsurou said, as he sagged into the back seat of a taxi. «Let's never do that again.»  
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.   
Boy was he happy he wasn't a sun god. That whole ordeal was going to give him nightmares for years to come. But luckily, after the nightmares, he'd just wake up in his nice warm bed with his nice warm Kai and absolutely no undulating, chanting creatures trying to nibble at his toes.   
Good thing he wasn't the one that then had to get up and whack them with a broom.  
No wonder Yachi was such a nervous wreck.  
«You ok?» he asked, when he noticed Oikawa was being unusually quiet.   
«Mmm.» His friend was flipping through his phone at the pictures they'd taken. «I'm going to have to process these,» he said. «Most of these are shit.»  
«Well exCUSE me for panicking when I'm surrounded by those .... things for the first time in my life. I'm so sorry I couldn't make crystal clear pictures in the fucking dark while the forces of fucking darkness were trying to murder us. That big one scared the shit out of me, thankyouverymuch.»  
«Yeah, that was something else,» Oikawa mumbled, peering at his phone like this was not the most scary thing he'd ever done in his life.   
«Suga said he'd never seen anything like it,» Kuroo tried.  
«Well neither have I... hey, does this look like a figure to you?» He showed Kuroo his phone and pointed to a scene of black and green.   
«Uhhh?»  
«There, above the crown thing.»

Kuroo squinted at the picture. He recognised the trees, bits of shrubbery and, shining brightly in the middle of the view, the melted plastic remnants of Yachi's broom. The crown, Oikawa called it, but it was more like a hunting trophy, really.   
He put on his glasses and peered at the image again, zooming in on the space Oikawa had pointed out.   
Kuroo frowned. It was something vaguely human, possibly. He could make out the outlines of a head, of hair, a nose. It could, with a lot of imagination, be a face.  
But if it was, it was definitely not a face he ever wanted to meet ever again.   
«That is not a happy face, Tooru,» he muttered.   
Add that to the list of things that were going to give him nightmares.  
Next to him, Oikawa sighed. «What are you going to do today?»  
«Get back to the hotel, take a shower, hug the bejeezes out of Kai and then eat pancakes until I feel like the world is right again.»  
Oikawa chuckled. «Lucky.»   
He smiled lightly and stared out the car window.  
«You dropping by Yachi?» Kuroo said.  
«Yeah. She's.... I promised.»  
The car pulled into the driveway of a large hotel.   
«We'll figure it out, Tooru,» Kuroo said, giving his leg a pat. «Lemme know what you find, ok?»  
And he climbed out.

 

 

“Hey.”  
Yamaguchi Tadashi pouted and pushed the Back button on his phone.   
Hi?   
He groaned.   
“Hello Yachi,” he typed, and he stopped. He was lying flat on his couch, listening to Kageyama and Hinata in the kitchen. They were arguing over the amount of salt necessary for their soup.   
With a sigh, he rolled over on the couch. “I don't think I can do this,” he said.  
“Then don't?” Tsukki had flung himself sideways across the armchair with a magazine.  
Yamaguchi rolled his eyes. “I probably shouldn't ask for your advice in this. You don't _do_ relationships.”  
Tsukki didn't react, probably didn't deserve it, but Yamaguchi was grumpy and he needed an outlet.   
“I can't believe the only one here with a stable relationship is Kageyama,” he moped. “Maybe I should ask him for advice. What's his secret anyway?”  
“Lack of standards,” Tsukki said without looking up. “On account of both parties.”  
This made Yamaguchi snort.  
He rolled onto his back and let out a long breath, staring at the ceiling.  
“Do you want her back?” Tsukki asked after a while. “Because I'm fairly sure that would indeed involve some form of communication, not just staring at the ceiling and wishing on a dust particle.”  
“Well I know _you_ don't approve,” Yamaguchi muttered, but Tsukki shrugged.  
“You've been miserable for a week now. If dating a crazy chick is what it's going to take, so be it. Just keep her asshole brothers away from me.”  
“You're so awesome, Tsukki!”  
“Shut up, Yamaguchi.”

 

 

Oikawa Tooru arrived in his hotel room and unpacked his laptop. He started transfering files and quickly ducked into his shower.  
When he came back out, camera one was 15 percent done.   
He groaned and brewed some coffee. These places never had enough power sockets for his liking.  
And the wifi sucked.   
This was gonna take some time.   
Sighing, he crawled onto the bed and folded his legs. He got to work, face lit up by the backlight of his screen as he stared at it, forgetting the rest of the world.  
  


 

Yachi Hitoka woke up feeling like a piece of gum that had gotten stuck to someone's shoe.  
Her head hurt, and her heart was racing.   
In her dreams she had been drowning. She knew that much.   
A dark sea of hands pulling at her, trying to drag her under. It had been frightening and sad and stressful and her fingers still hurt from how much she must have clawed in her sleep.  
So why was there a voice in the back of her head that kept telling her to just let go. To give in. I  
t was still there, come to think of it. It whispered how nothing mattered, how she should just stop trying, and it just kept going on and on and on. Like a chant.   
She shook her head quickly and turned on some music, trying to cancel it out.  
What day was it anyway? What time?  
Outside her window, rain was still coming down. Her coffee was cold, and it didn't look like Oikawa was back yet.   
She checked her phone.

 

_Today: 14:44_  
From _**Yamaguchi T.**_  
“Hello Yachi-san. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to answer. I've been thinking a lot, and if you don't mind, I'd like to, uh, talk to you.”

 

Yachi's eyes went wide.   
Oh my gods he had replied! A happy shiver went through her. She was almost vibrating from her head to her toes.   
What was she going to answer? How long should she wait?   
Not that it mattered, of course. It wasn't like he wanted her back.   
She blinked, her eyes suddenly very heavy, but she took a deep breath and typed back.

 

_Today: 15:55_  
From _**Yachi H.**_  
“Hello Yamaguchi-kun. It makes me really happy to hear from you. Would you like to meet? Or do you want to ask me some questions via phone?”

 

She smiled softly to herself.  
This was useless, she thought. She should just go to bed.   
But then she might just sleep for days again. The thought of losing so much time was utterly terrifying. Not to mention that it might scare off Yamaguchi again.  
Her eyes did feel incredibly heavy, though, and her brothers had, indeed, told her to rest. Surely it would be ok to just take a little nap. Just a little one.   
What did it matter, really, in the grand scheme of things?

 

 

When she awoke again, her apartment seemed awfully dark, and she was cold as ice.   
She blinked up at her cold cup of coffee and reached out for her phone again.   
Five in the afternoon.   
Why was her apartment so dark? Why did everything feel so heavy?   
She could hear voices nearby. Singing? Maybe?   
«Oikawa-san?»  
Her voice sounded strangely weak and far away, like she was hearing herself speak from behind several walls.   
She shivered and pulled her blanket closer around her as she sat up. It took forever to even get into an upright position, and she sat there panting.   
Her heart was beating in her throat but it was nothing like she was used to. It didn't run tick-tick-tick like the patter of a squirrel racing up a tree. It sounded lower, slower, like a bell being rung in the distance.   
Cold dread crashed down while she looked around the room. Why was everything so blurry?   
Maybe she was dreaming, she thought. Maybe this was all a nightmare.   
She should go back to sleep.

There was that voice again.   
«Oikawa-san?» she squaeked.   
Struggling, she stood up, holding onto the couch for support. Everything felt heavy, like the air itself was weighing her down.   
Oh gods what was going on?   
She needed to do something.   
Did she really, though? Wouldn't it be easier to just let go? All this struggling was in vain, surely, just a way to delay the inevitable.   
«What inevitable?» she whispered, but no one answered. 

She leaned against the couch, pondering what to do, who to call, when she noticed something move in the corner of her eye.   
A black stain. High up on the wall, right above her front door. Trembling, she turned to look at it, but it was gone.   
Oh great, now she was going crazy too.   
She picked up her phone again. She should call someone.   
No, she shouldn't. She'd only bother them.   
But they'd be worried.  
They didn't care about her.   
Ok, ok, calm down.   
Go to sleep.   
No.

Swallowing heavily, she took a step. Her legs felt like lead.   
The stain on the wall was there again. She dared not look, but she was fairly certain it was oozing across the ceiling.   
She needed a circle.  
As if that would work.   
She needed. A. Circle.   
With whatever strength she could muster, she stumbled the two metres towards her bathroom.   
Sun water, that's what she needed. She was sure of it. If everything was dark, even if it felt like the middle of the night, surely Suga's warmth would still be there.   
Not that Suga cared about her, of course.

He  _did.  
_ Then why wasn't he here? Why wasn't Oikawa here? Or Yamaguchi? They all left her, abandoned her to die alone.  
Yachi gasped at her own thoughts.   
Like  _hell_ she was gonna die here. Not when Yamaguchi had just texted her back. Not when there was hope that she could talk to him again and maybe show him...  
Not that she deserved him.

Taking a laboured breath, she opened the bathroom cabinet and fumbled for the jar of sun water.  
Her arms were heavy. Why was everything so damn heavy? It was like something was pulling her down. Frustated, she held the jar to her chest.   
“Please. Please just let me wake up.”  
Something black streaked across her vision and she jumped, shrieking.  
With a sharp crash, t he jar fell to the bathroom tiles, spilling water everywhere.   
“On no! Nonono.”  
She knelt down and fashioned the spill into a circle while glass shards lodged themselves in her skin. From the bathroom door, she could see a black stain growing on the white bathroom tiles. It oozed in, sucking out all light wherever it went.  
Yachi sat back and leaned against the wall. She was so tired.   
She should give up.   
Something buzzed in her pocket and she pulled out her phone.   
“Oikawa-san?”  
The screen was blurry, impossible to read. She typed a reply.   
On the wall opposite her, the black stain was growing, whispering, closing in.

 

 

Oikawa Tooru blinked, as if waking from a trance.   
The little spinning wheel in the corner of his screen told him he was about a quarter through transfering files from the third camera.   
So far, him playing around with the photos hadn't given him much, though.  
He stretched and checked the clock on the bedside table.   
Wow, five already.   
He cracked his neck and jumped off the bed. He'd promised to visit Yachi. He should probably get to that.   
His stomach growled loudly.   
Yes, that too.

 

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi stood in the convenience store, trying to choose between spicy and extra spicy barbecue chips. He wasn't too fond of the overly hot ones, but Tsukki sure as hell was.   
While he tried to make the super hard decision, he idly watched the tv in the corner. It was playing an earlier round of the summer Koshien, the Nationals for high school baseball. The former champions against a team he'd never heard from before.   
Oddly enough, the underdogs were doing really well. It was a pretty good match, all things considered.  
His phone buzzed and he clicked it open. 

 

_ Today: 17:06 _   
From  _ **Yachi H.** _   
“jelp imm sp scaed”

 

Yamaguchi frowned at his screen.   
That was... not the answer he was expecting. He'd simply requested they meet in a café or something, because Tsukki had suggested neutral ground, and he couldn't really find any arguments against that.   
On tv, the crowd roared. Bottom of the ninth and the underdogs had just filled all bases.   
After a moment's hesitation, he dialed her number.   
No reply.   
'jelp imm sp scaed'.... What did that even mean? Did she sleeptext him?  
He tried again, listening to the soft beeps of his phone autodialing, and then the longer beeps of it ringing.   
She didn't pick up. Why wouldn't she pick up? She was right there, she'd sent that....  
Something clicked in his head. 

Yamaguchi put back both bags of chips and sprinted out the door while his head started furiously calculating.  
The 13 bus to her apartment would arrive in ten minutes, and take ten more to get there. The 45 was faster, but he'd have to wait around for 17 minutes, which was way too long.   
If he took the-  
Across the street, the 587 bus pulled up to the sidewalk. Ten minute ride, and it stopped about two hundred meters from Yachi's place.  
Yamaguchi sprinted across the street and hopped on. 

 

 

Sugawara Koushi shuffled into the staff room at the hospital and plopped onto a chair. It made a disgruntled squeaky sound.  
Wordlessly, one of his colleagues put a cup of coffee in front of him.  
“I love you.”  
“Yeah, yeah.”  
The nurse tittered, briefly, and walked out, leaving Suga alone to sit in the stark neon light and listen to the hum of the nearby refrigerator.   
He rolled his neck and closed his eyes, not moving until the 'bloop' of his phone announced a new email.

 

**_From_ : Yaku Morisuke (** MorisukeJasmin@baidu.ch **)**   
**_To:_ Kuroo Tetsurou (** mailman@gmail.com **); Bokuto Koutarou (** bokutou.koutaro@bl.uk **), Akaashi Keiji (** x78ijeliy18665@protonmail.com **)**   
**_CC_ : Sugawara Koushi (** SugawaraK@yahoo.jp **)**

 

『Gentlemen,   
I figured last mail's message was a bit of a downer, so I looked further and I found the following. I don't know how well it'll work but you might want to know anyway. 』

『 In light of my new theories, I went back to my previous records to find a form of recovery. It was perhaps too presumptuous of me to assume that I could cure patients from an affliction that is basically death. I have some kind of power, of that I'm certain. I am no mere human, but I certainly don't presume that I could raise the dead. If these shadow bites are indeed a fatal affliction, that would make the recovery that much more complex.   
This is why I cross-examined the patients I 'healed' in 1963 with civil records from twelve years later. And truly, while most of the patients were fine when I left that village, I am sad to say that they did not survive the next winter. The only ones that truly managed to make it for more than a year after being afflicted, were the following: a middle aged couple, two ladies who had lived together as spinsters for most of their life, and a father and his son. It might be too simple to assume significance in this sample. But forgive an old man for believing there is. What caused these people to keep the curse at bay, it seems, was not luck or strength, or even my poorly informed ministrations, but warmth. Of family or, if I may be that whimsical, of love.  
 _'_ _ The passion of  love bursting into flame is more powerful  than death ,  stronger than t _ _he grave.'_   
Who knew that I, of all people, would remember that line? 』 

 

 

Yamaguchi Tadashi drummed his fingers on his leg as the bus inched its way through the streets of Kyoto. He could swear he'd never been in a slower vehicle in his life.   
Every stoplight went red. Every bus stop had people. Frustratingly old people that took forever to get on, or young mothers with baby carriages that needed help or... anything but regular, fast people, really.   
Outside the window, rain was pouring down. A sudden cloudburst filled the already crowded streets with water.   
Anxiously, he looked out the front window. Traffic was blocking up quickly.   
This bus was only going to get slower, he thought.   
Two kilometers. That's how far he had to go if he went straight through the park.   
The bus pulled up to the sidewalk, and a line of elderly people queued up.   
With a deep breath, Yamaguchi jumped off and started running.  
  


 

Oikawa Tooru stood under the awning of a boutique and pouted at the rain. He wished it would just stop. He still had a ways to walk, to the convenience store for food, and then all the way to Yachi's, all through what appeared to be some monsoon.   
Friggin.... Asia...   
Sighing, his eye was caught by a figure racing through the park.   
What an idiot, he thought, who even goes running when the weather's like this?   
Actually scratch that, he was probably some delinquent running from the law or something. Oikawa squinted and tracked the figure as it crossed the park and got onto the pavement, never stopping as he ran the length of the street.  
That kid looked just like Yamaguchi, Oikawa thought. Running toward Yachi's place, too.  
Oh.  
With a frown, Oikawa pulled his jacket up over his head and followed.

 

 

Bzzzt  
Bzzzzzzzzt.  
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt  
Yamaguchi Tadashi panted heavily and leaned his forehead against the bell.   
He should have thought this through. He had no way of getting in here.   
He wondered if he should try her neighbours, maybe talk his way past them, but first he needed to catch his breath. His sides were stinging, his shirt drenched. God, he was a mess.  
『I didn't know the drowned rat look was in fashion in Japan.』  
Growling, Yamaguchi turned toward the voice, only to stop in his tracks when the owner shook out his hair and flashed him a smile.  
『Oikawa-san! I need to get in there.』  
The strange man lifted an eyebrow.   
『It's Yachi! I think she's hurt. Or in danger or... She said she was scared.』  
That sounded really dumb, now that he thought about it, but Oikawa merely nodded and pulled out a key.

 

 

Yachi Hitoka was floating. It felt cold here, but at this point she didn't care anymore.   
Cold and dark. Like water rushing past her.   
Wait, was she drowning?   
She should probably do something about that.   
There were whispers all around her. Singing too, if you wanted to call it that.   
And somewhere in the distance someone was shouting.  
“Ashiii.”  
She frowned to herself. That was a weird thing to yell.   
“Achii!”  
With some effort, she opened her eyes to look around. Nothing here but black water.   
Scary, but also peaceful.  
“Yachi!”  
Ohhhhh. Right. That was her. Someone was calling her.   
They sounded upset. Nice, though. Friendly voice, warm voice. A voice she could really... like.   
Yachi stretched out her hands and pushed through the black water, moving slowly towards the sound.

 

 

“Yachi! Please, pleasepleaseplease stay with us. I don't care if you're weird. I don't care that you have the world's worst siblings. I need you to come back, ok?”  
Yamaguchi Tadashi knelt on the cold tiles of Yachi's bathroom, holding her limp body. The scene they'd stumbled upon was like something out of a horror movie.   
The bathroom floor was wet, strewn with blood and glass, and in the middle was Yachi, unconscious, pale as a shroud. She had scratches all over her arms, but from what he could tell, she didn't bleed too much. Not enough to die, surely.  
But the dark marks she'd shown him earlier were visible all over her skin, up to her cheek.  
“Yachi?”  
He listened for her breath. It was shallow, slow, like her heartbeat.   
“Yachi please. I'm sorry. Ok? I'm sorry for freaking out. I'm sorry for ignoring your texts. You're super cute and super sweet and I-”

『 Well, isn't this just incredibly sappy. 』  Oikawa was leaning against the bathroom wall, arms folded.  
『 You! Shut up! Why aren't you doing something? 』    
『 Because it looks like you got it covered, 』  he shrugged.  『 She's got some of her colour back, at least. 』   
He crouched down next to them and laid a palm on her forehead.  『 Ouch. Cold as a stone though. 』    
『 Shouldn't we call a doctor? 』   
『 What's a doctor gonna do about magic ilnesses? 』   
『 Your nurse friend then! 』   
『 I did. Or I'm trying to. 』  He held up his phone, showing a chatbox full of text in a language Yamaguchi didn't understand.   
『 We're kinda stuck until he calls back. He's usually pretty quick with these things though. 』   
He stood back up and draped a towel over Yamaguchi's head.  『 I'm gonna go and brew some coffee. Maybe the smell will wake her up. Stay right there. 』

Oikawa walked out, leaving Yamaguchi to contemplate where his life had suddenly gone wrong.   
This was like one of those stupid fairy tales, he thought. Where the princess is in a deep sleep because of some evil stepmother who takes too many selfies, and then the prince has to-  
Yamaguchi pursed his lips.   
No. That was too dumb to even try.   
You don't just...  
He looked down at the girl in his arms, the bite marks on her skin slowly fading as she lay there. Swallowing thickly, he leaned forward and placed the softest of kisses on the top of her forehead.   
“Please be ok?”  
Yachi scrunched up her face.   
“Yachi?! Yachi-san?”  
Slowly, she blinked up at him. “Yamaguchi... kun? What are you doing here?”  


 

* * *

 

**One month later**

“Hand me the onions, please?”  
Yamaguchi Tadashi put down the kitchen knife and handed Yachi a bowl of chopped onions before getting back to wrangling carrots.   
Next to him, Yachi added spices to the pan.   
“That smells nice,” he said, leaning over and dropping a kiss on her head.   
She chuckled and added the chopped carrots. “Thanks.”  
Yamaguchi slipped past and opened a kitchen cabinet to pull out the buckwheat noodles.   
“Big hunger or little hunger?” he asked.  
“Big,” Yachi nodded. “If we have leftovers it’s no problem.”  
Nodding, he dropped two packets of noodles into the boiling water. Then he slipped his arms around his cooking girlfriend.  
“Tadashi?”  
“Mmm?” he said, kissing her shoulder.  
“Tadashi, I’m trying to cook,” she giggled.  
“You’re doing great,” he said, kissing the back of her neck. “Besides, you have to be kissed lots, remember. Doctor’s orders.”  
He nuzzled her hair.   
“Suga-san is a nurse, Tadashi.”  
“Close enough.” Yamaguchi pulled himself flush to her, leaning over to place his head on her shoulder. “Do you want me to stop?”  
She shook her head, smiling. “Not really, though I would like it if you made sure the noodles didn’t boil over,” she said, indicating the pot of boiling water currently frothing through the lid..  
“Oh!” 

 

 

In a heavily secured chatroom, known only to the gods, Sugawara Koushi sat in his tile, wearing kitten pyjama's and sipping sake.   
«And then he dumped me,» he said with a sigh.   
«His loss, Su-chan.» Oikawa, in a dark room, face illuminated by the blue light of several screens gave him a winning smile. «Three dates is ideal, anyway. Just enough to get your rocks off, but not so much as to get attached.»  
«I got plenty attached,» Suga pouted, taking another swig.   
«Well, that's your problem.»  
In one corner of the screen, a third tile flipped up. It showed, initially, a fluffy black cat sniffing at the camera. After a few moments, two hands picked it up, earning a protesting little mewl. Then the face of Kuroo came into view.  
«Yo!»  
«Hey Tetsu.»  
«Still no Yachi?» he asked.  
«She was on briefly,» Oikawa said. «But then she left when her boy came over. Therapy, no doubt.»  
«'Therapy',» Suga said, putting his fingers up in air quotes.  
«Aw, well I wanted to tell her too, but I guess you guys will do.»  
«I'm touched, Tetsu.»  
«Well it's not like anyone truly wants me,» Suga sighed. «What's the big news.»  
«Uhh.» Kuroo frowned for a moment, but Oikawa gave him an encouraging shrug.   
«Right,» Kuroo said. «So I looked at the pics you sent me, of the shadow thing?»  
«Yeah, I need to like... do facial analysis or something. We need some fancier software than I have. And even then, we don't really know what to do with that information.»  
«Well fear not, because I think I know who it might be,» Kuroo said, grinning widely. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, and thanks for reading this all the way to the end. (yes there is a cliffhanger of sorts, but this is definitely the end of this particular fic)  
> I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know what you think.


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